


The Other Hawke

by tanukiham



Series: The Other Hawke [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:35:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 65,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanukiham/pseuds/tanukiham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Garrett isn't the only Hawke in Kirkwall."</p><p>Carver asks Fenris to practice with him, and from there blossoms a beautiful friendship in which they hit each other with sticks, drink far too much wine, and talk about sex. Everything after that is a bonus. Cheese is eaten, baths are had, and between all the angst someone has sex with an elf.</p><p>This is a story about envy and frustration, and how much Carver needs to get laid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kmeme prompt: Can we please have some Carver being simply amazing?
> 
> Yes. Yes, we sodding can.

“Spar with me.”

The elf pauses, halfway to shouldering his blade, and it is magnificent, that sword, a huge black thing almost as long as he is and _heavy_ looking. Carver covets it, but of course his brother gave it to the elf, and not to him. In the same way, Garrett takes the elf with him on his stupid adventures, leaving Carver at home with his mother and uncle Gamlen, and he even takes _Duchess_ , for crap's sake. Carver refuses to be jealous of a dog.

Being jealous of the elf, though, that's different.

The elf is pretty impressive. Carver is taller, broader, thicker, and should by all rights be stronger, but the elf hefts that sword like it's made of paper, scything through armour and skin and bone like, oh, paper again. Carver has never been _good_ at description, but if he could describe the elf he would use words like 'swift' and 'lithe' and 'deadly'.

Particularly bloody deadly today; Garrett has them hunting slavers up and down the Wounded Coast. Aveline was too busy with patrols to join them so Garrett invited Carver. He did it like it was a rutting _favour_ , like he was taking him for _walkies_. Carver nearly told him to get stuffed, but hanging about the house with Gamlen's bitching is like having your ears grated off -- probably not going to kill you but painful, nevertheless.

Maybe it's the slavers, but today the elf is something else, a whirlwind of bladed death leaving a trail of scattered limbs and bodies in his wake. Carver wishes he could move like that, could strike so decisively and with such confidence. That is probably why he says it, though he hadn't really given it much thought before.

“Spar with you?” The elf settles his blade and shrugs his shoulders, moving from foot to foot as though testing the weight. “Now?”

“Of course not bloody now,” Carver says roughly. It comes out wrong, and the elf gives him a sidelong look that is either annoyed or completely blank and Carver can't even tell. “I don't know, maybe tomorrow?”

“I might need you tomorrow, Fenris,” Garrett says, not looking at either of them. This is typical, and it infuriates Carver how his brother always takes priority, even when it isn't that he actually has plans but 'might' and, really, everyone will keep their dance cards open just in case Garrett 'Check me out, I'm awesome' Hawke might, just _might_ want a word.

He opens his mouth to call his brother a spit-eared dick, but--

“I might be busy tomorrow.”

Garrett actually turns around, and Carver could swear that's surprise on his face. It only lasts a moment, though, and then Garrett drags them up a hill and into a cave, which is of course full of humongous spiders, and Carver watches the elf out of the corner of his eye as he cuts them into stinky, gooey pieces. Lithe. And bloody deadly.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning, Garrett asks Carver if he wants to go on a jaunt up Sundermount. “Isabela's coming,” he says, smirking and watching Carver over a cup of the boiled-bark-water that passes for tea in this shitty hovel. Carver can tell from the way his brother needles him about her that Garrett has got it into his head that Carver has a thing for Isabela, and that's true enough. He finds her painfully attractive, but she's too intimidating, and talking to her is a minefield of mockery and innuendo. She makes fun of him. Carver hates being made fun of. So, yes, the thought of fucking Isabela is ball-tightening, but hanging out with her for a whole day is a recipe for frustration and misery.

“I've got plans today, brother. Remember?”

Garrett blinks. “No?”

Carver feels his face twist up in a scowl, and it's amazing how it does that all by itself sometimes. Especially around his brother. “Really? You don't remember yesterday? Elf? Sparring? Not ring any bells?”

“Fenris said he was busy. Or have you forgotten?”

“Too busy for _you_ ,” Carver argues, pressing his knuckles into the edge of the table. It hurts, but in a good way, a controlled way, because it's _him_ doing it to himself and he can stop if he likes, any time.

Garrett chuckles. “Oh, Carver. You don't really think Fenris is too busy for me because of _you_ , do you?”

Fuck. You. Carver doesn't say this but only because his mother can hear. “That's it, I'm out,” he says instead, shoving himself roughly to his feet. “Have fun up your bloody mountain.” He grabs his sword and heads for the door.

“Sweetheart?” His mother catches him by the arm. She looks anxious; she always looks anxious when they bicker, and makes his heart hurt to see how many lines she has now, how much worry there is creased into the corners of her eyes. She smiles, but it's an anxious smile, and hands him a couple of slices of bread. “Eat something, darling.”

Carver leans down to kiss her cheek. There is _nothing_ unmanly about kissing your mother. He doesn't tell her he loves her, though. “Try not to kill anyone today,” he mutters, glancing at the door to the bedroom where Gamlen is still snoring.

He lets himself out and the stink of Kirkwall hits him like a soggy blanket. It's disgusting. Maker, how he hates it here. The streets are like sewers and the people are like corpses walking around begging for coin or food, or the chance to swap a tumble for either of the two.

He misses his twin. It's like losing a leg and an arm and an eye, and Garrett sighs over Bethany from time to time but Carver wakes up every morning with no-one to listen to his dreams, and goes to bed every night with no-one to whisper to in the dark. Bethany was afraid of the dark. She was afraid of the Fade, of demons, of becoming an abomination. She needed Carver to keep the demons at bay, and he would reach across the space between their beds to twine his fingers with hers and listen to her breathing slow and deepen, and then he could sleep too, knowing they were both safe. 

But now there's just Garrett, who doesn't need Carver at all.

The bread his mother gave him is gritty, full of bits of chaff, but she has scraped some meaty dripping over it that makes it almost like food. Carver eats both pieces, climbing stair after stair through Lowtown to Hightown, watching the walking dead of Kirkwall become a little better dressed, a little healthier, a little less repulsive. It's not Ferelden. It can never be Ferelden. Even Hightown is repugnant. He misses open sky and fresh air and the space to move around in without knocking into things. There were fields back in Ferelden, and orchards. Bethany and Carver would take Duchess for long rambling walks, throwing sticks for her and scrumping apples. Bethany loved apples. Duchess used to eat the cores. Carver hasn't seen an apple for over a year. Lots of cabbage, with all its inevitable repercussions. No apples.

The elf is squatting in a mansion in Hightown, and Carver can't quite understand why no-one has kicked him out yet. Well, obviously the elf could just hand them their arse if they tried, but surely _enough_ guardsmen could politely and firmly evict him if they wanted to. Carver supposes that no-one must really be that concerned.

Garrett never knocks. Carver knocks. No-one comes to the door. He waits a bit and knocks again, and _still_ no-one comes so he thumps on the door and then, feeling a little antsy, tries the handle. It isn't locked. He lets himself in, calling out, “Hey! It's Carver. Um, Carver _Hawke_. Are you home?” There's no immediate answer, so he adds, “I'm coming in!”

It's a bit of a pity that the place is such a mess. Carver thinks of how it might look if someone lit the lamps and stuck down some of the floor tiles, and took away that bucket of … what _is_ in that bucket? He decides he doesn't want to know, and takes the stairs two at a time. 

“Hey, elf! Are you here?” And maybe, just maybe, the elf really does have other plans, not Carver-plans but definitely-not-Carver-plans, and Carver has just _assumed_ things and Garrett will turn out to be right _again_ and will go on and _on_ about it until Carver snaps and breaks a knuckle on a wall. Stubbornly, he keeps going, across the landing, through a half-open door, and this is where the elf keeps his empty wine bottles and his bed. “Elf?”

“I have a name, human.”

Carver turns. The elf is still in bed, leaning on one elbow and scrubbing a hand through his weirdly white hair. His voice is thick with sleep, and as he pushes himself up Carver realises that the elf isn't wearing a shirt and, wow, those tattoos go _everywhere_.

He knows he's ogling but he can't help it. There's just so much silver ink and olive skin stretched over lean muscle, and Carver thinks that someone so lean ought not to be so strong. It makes no sense, not when he himself strains the shoulders of all his tunics and his mother is always having to let them out and he is _still_ not as strong as the elf.

He swallows. “So do I.” Why does everything he says have to sound so petulant?

The elf levels one of those possibly-irritated, possibly-blank looks at him and waits.

Carver frowns. _Does he want me to say it first?_ “Fenris?” he says, wishing it didn't pull up at the end into a question but he can't _help_ it.

The elf smirks, mouth turning up ever so slightly on one side. “Hawke,” he says, and it hits Carver like a fist. 

No-one ever calls him Hawke. That's his father; that's Garrett. Carver is always just Carver. He stares, shocked. Hawke. He doesn't know what he thinks of that.

“Did you want to spar today?” The elf (he should really try to think of him as Fenris) stretches, clasping both hands together above his head and arching like a cat. It's a little ridiculous how good he makes it look. Carver knows that he would look like a fool doing that if anyone could see.

“Yes,” he says, and now Fenris is pulling back the sheets and climbing out of bed and -- Andraste at the bloody _stake_ , he isn't wearing _anything_! Carver coughs and turns around. Those tattoos really _do_ go everywhere. Why does he have to know that? Why couldn't he just not know that? Why does the Maker hate him so much?

Probably because he thinks so many blasphemies. Yeah. He should probably stop that.

He can hear the elf dressing. Or at least, he assumes that's what those sounds are. He concentrates on the table littered with empty bottles. Either Fenris never cleans up or he drinks a _lot_. “Did, um, _you_ want to spar today?”

“I have nothing better to do.”

Carver twitches. Should he say something? He should. He doesn't want to. “My brother's heading up Sundermount.” _Carver, you bloody fool_. “He'd probably want you with him.”

“Your brother is very demanding.” There is a clink of metal on metal. Armour, Carver guesses. “It is good for him to not always get his own way.”

That, Carver can agree with. “Yeah,” he says, a grin spreading across his face. _Take_ that _, Garrett, you ass_.

The elf moves into Carver's line of sight, now fully dressed. He picks up a canteen from the table, drinks out of it, and walks away. Carver isn't sure if he is expected to follow but he does, back down the stairs and out to the dilapidated kitchen where Fenris stops to fill the canteen from a pump. Everything is in disrepair. It's a little depressing.

“My mother would kill for this kitchen,” he says. “If, you know, it wasn't covered in rust and, um, mouse shit.”

Fenris gives him one of those unreadable looks. “You mother is welcome to it.” He sounds bitter, maybe, or angry. It's hard to tell. 

He takes a long drink out of the canteen and refills it, and then wipes his mouth on his wrist. 

“Did you have somewhere specific in mind?”

Carver shakes his head. “Uh … I guess … Wounded Coast?”

Fenris nods, heads back upstairs to retrieve his sword from beside the bed, Carver trailing behind like a damn puppy, and then downstairs again. The way that he moves is impressive, Carver thinks, purposeful. He doesn't look back, doesn't check that he has everything, just _moves_ , out of the mansion and into the city, slowing down a little when Carver falls behind, and then lopes ahead again with that odd, bouncing gait that has him always on his toes. His very naked toes.

“Why don't elves wear shoes?” Carver asks, wincing when he realises this makes it obvious that he was looking at Fenris' feet.

“Why do humans _wear_ shoes?” The elf doesn't look back, but he tilts his head, speaking over his shoulder in a way that Garrett never does. 

“Uh, prickles? And stones? And, you know, muck in general?”

Fenris huffs, a short exhalation that is really pretty damn expressive. “Elves are clearly blessed with less sensitive soles."

Carver wonders if this is a joke. “I thought elves were famous for having sensitive _souls_ ,” he says, clattering down the steps. Fenris hesitates, looking left and right, and Carver wonders if the pun has gone unnoticed. “You know, frolicking in the woods and making friends with bluebirds, reciting poetry, that sort of thing. Souls. Not the kind on your feet.”

The elf moves on, not looking back. “I have never frolicked in the woods.”

Maker, he's hard to talk to. “But poetry's okay?” he asks, and Fenris stops so suddenly that Carver nearly runs him down. Or into him, at least; it would probably take more than a large lump of clumsy human to knock the elf off his feet. Fenris turns, looks up at Carver, and frowns.

“ _Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior._ ” His frown deepens, and then he starts off again, a little faster, and Carver has to scramble to catch up.

“What was that?”

“A poem.”

“Well, yeah. What does it mean?”

“The first word is 'hate',” Fenris growls, and that is apparently everything he has to say on the matter.

They head out to the Wounded Coast, far enough that no-one will bother them, not so far that they have to deal with smugglers or those renegade Qunari Carver can't be bothered remembering the name for. Fenris prowls along the coast until he seems satisfied they are alone, and then starts hacking at a dead tree with absolutely no warning or explanation whatsoever.

“Uh … what are you …?”

Fenris ignores him until he has separated two solid branches, both nearly as long as he is, and puts his sword aside to pick up the lengths of wood, offering one of them to Carver. “I imagine you are no more eager to be skewered by a naked blade than I am,” he says. He sounds … sardonic. Carver has never been sure what that word really means, but this, he thinks, might be it.

“Oh,” he says, and, “No. Not really.” The branch is pretty straight, reasonably heavy, and not too bad an approximation of a sword. He hefts it. Not heavy enough, but it'll do.

“Very well.”

They begin slowly, Fenris pausing every few strokes to frown and shake his head. After a few minutes of this, Carver can't take it any more. “What?” he demands. “What's getting up your arse?”

The elf hesitates, and lowers his branch. “You are too large.”

“Well, I can't bloody shrink,” Carver says angrily, because this is just _perfect_. An elf calling him 'too large'. Andraste's arsehole!

The elf shakes his head, very slightly. “No. I did not mean … you are too large in your movements. You have greater reach than I, and you use it well, but when you parry you make the movement too large. It wastes energy, and time, and makes you look inexperienced.”

“Oh, thanks very bloody much,” Carver mutters. Great. He looks inexperienced.

“Is that not the point of this?” The elf cocks his head, watching Carver. “Did you not want to improve your skills?”

“Well, yes,” Carver admits, and he knows he sounds surly, but that's okay because he _feels_ surly.

The elf nods. “I am more experienced than you. You should heed me. And through teaching and practice, I will improve my skills also. It is to our mutual benefit. If it were not, I would not be here. Now. Make your parry smaller. You need only break the line of my thrust, not throw my weapon aside. Parry.”

Fenris lunges into a thrust and Carver parries, but the elf shakes his head again. “No, smaller. You try, and I will parry. Now.”

Annoyed, Carver lunges, putting his whole body behind it, and the elf knocks him aside with the tiniest of movements, the branch passing him easily as he steps away. Carver glares at him, daring him to smirk, but there is none of Garrett's amused superiority in his face, only a determined focus that Carver envies so much it makes him sick.

“Let us try again. Small movements.”

And they do. Carver thinks he might be getting the hang of it when Fenris eventually nods and suggests they go back to sparring.

They break just after noon, the sun too hot and Carver's stomach making noises about not having enough greased bread in it. Fenris shares his water and, with his throat wet, Carver feels suddenly guilty. “You never broke your fast,” he says. “Aren't you hungry?”

“I do not eat as much as you,” Fenris says, and finishes off the water. “But yes, I could eat now. Shall we?”

Carver is hot and sweaty, and his muscles hurt, but it feels good. They prop their branches up against a rock and leave them there, and Fenris lets Carver lead the way back through the dunes to horrible, horrible Kirkwall.

Carver sees the elf wrinkle his nose as they near the city. “Smells bad, does it?” he says. “Sensitive stomach?”

“More sensitive than my soul or soles,” Fenris mutters. “How I hate this place.”

“Well, why don't you leave?” Carver doesn't mean it quite how it sounds; it comes out aggressive. _Why don't you leave, then?_ As if he wants the elf to just go.

Fenris does not seem to take it that way, though. He rolls his shoulders, shifting his stance. “Kirkwall in all its degradation is still better than Minrathous.”

“Is that where you came from? Is that in Tevinter?” The elf nods stiffly. “My brother says you were a slave there. So, I suppose that would make anywhere else better.”

“Anything is better than being enslaved,” Fenris says firmly. He takes up the lead again, shoving through the thin crowd and making his way to the Lowtown markets where he stops. “Here,” and he pulls a piece of silver from one of his pouches. “How much food will this buy?”

Carver blinks at him. “Uh, a lot. You probably don't want to flash that around down here.”

The elf frowns, looking at the coin, and then holds it out between thumb and first-finger. “Take it. Buy food. I am not … good at haggling.”

Carver isn't particularly good at haggling, either, but he gets some cheese and bread, and some salted meat that Fenris turns up his nose at until Carver swears it isn't fish or even vaguely fish based -- he doesn't tell him it might easily be dog or cat or, urgh, rat. They take the food up to a sunny bench in Hightown. Fenris insists that Carver share the food, and Carver insists that Fenris take the change from the silver dollar.

“What did you do?” Carver asks, mouth half full of cheese. “When you were a slave, I mean? Were you a guard?”

“Sometimes,” Fenris says, frowning at his lunch. “Sometimes I was a spectacle. Sometimes I was an entertainment.”

Carver doesn't know what that means. “Like … dancing? Or, did you recite poetry?”

The elf hunches and Carver is now completely sure he's annoyed. He's glowering. “Neither of those things. Do not ask me.”

Carver shrugs, munches his jerky. It's heavily spiced with pepper, making it harder to tell where it came from and for that he's thankful. He chews for a while, swallows, and can't help himself. “Why do you live in that mansion? You could go anywhere, do anything. You don't have to stay here.”

“Why do _you_ stay here?”

Carver knows he means Kirkwall. “My mother's here,” he says.

“Do you not mean your brother?”

Carver looks up sharply, but the elf is just looking at him with those light fierce eyes, not even a trace of a smirk or a smile on his face. “What are you getting at?” he demands anyway, annoyed.

“Your brother,” Fenris drawls, “is like a well. We all of us seep toward him, to fill his depths and provide him with what he needs. It is inexorable. You provide him with the anchor. Something to fight for. Something to protect.”

“I don't need him to protect me,” Carver argues, and the elf shakes his head.

“No. You do not. But he needs to believe that you do.”

He finishes his meal in silence, and Carver is pretty sure he could be convinced to do all of this again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fenris is, of course, quoting Catullus. Because Catullus is awesome. 
> 
> And I don't dare attempt to translate Catullus. I fear his wrath.


	3. Chapter 3

Merrill is really, really cute. She fidgets, looking up at everything with horrified wonder, and Carver likes the way her hands are always moving, always touching something, even if it's just to brush dust off her tunic or flick an invisible nothing in the air. He is shocked when he sees how scarred her hands are, and he asks her about it, while his brother is selling trash and trinkets to a merchant who probably wouldn't take them if Garrett wasn't so bleeding charming.

“Oh, these?” she holds her hands up, looking at them as though they belong to somebody else. They are criss-crossed with cuts, some old and faded, some recent, some quite fresh. “Well, I did them myself.”

He loves the sound of her voice. It lilts, like a, a, a something he doesn't know how to describe, flitting about like a, um, butterfly, or a bird. He misses the birds in Ferelden. There don't seem to be any birds in Kirkwall, other than gulls and crows, and they don't make very pleasant noises at the best of times.

“What do you mean, yourself?”

“Would you look at that?” Merrill is watching a man pushing another man up against a wall. For a horrible moment Carver thinks it's a murder, but it looks like just another Lowtown argument, not quite ending in a stabbing, but the men do hit each other a bit before one of them runs off, bleeding from the nose. “How in-ter-es-ting,” Merrill trills, clearly delighted. “Shemlen have such strange interactions. I can't quite keep up. Oh, should I not have said that?” she says, peering up into Carver's face. “I'm sorry, please ignore me. Sometimes I just can't stop talking and I say the silliest things. Just pretend I'm not here.”

“Is she crazy?” Carver asks his brother later, while Merrill is examining a dead dog she has found on a street corner.

Garrett snorts. “Maybe. I think I like crazy, though. Plus, look at her. She's absolutely adorable.”

It makes Carver's fists ache when he sees his brother put his hand on Merrill's shoulder and how she leans into it like a cat. Of course. Why should he expect anything different?

They go to the Hanged Man to see Varric. Carver doesn't listen to the conversation between his brother and the dwarf, but watches the way that Isabela brushes Merrill's hair off her neck and smiles at her, and that too makes him angry. She's not a child. Why does everyone treat her like a child? Just because she's small, and sweet, and clearly naive about pretty much everything. Isabela gives her a cup and she drinks out of it without question, coughing up whatever it is at once. Isabela laughs, and pats her on the back. Carver hates Isabela for that, though it's hard to hate someone with so much exposed bosom. The bosom is distracting.

“I'm bored,” Isabela says, leaning on Garrett's arm and toying with his stupidly long hair. “Why don't we do something fun?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Isabela grins, and Garrett grins, and Carver knows they are staying now, not going down to the docks to investigate whatever it is that Meeran wanted to talk to them about.

 _This_ , he thinks, _is my life. Led around by my brother's dick. Brilliant._

Then there's shitty ale and cards, and Garrett wins for a bit until Isabela ups the stakes and takes him for pretty much everything. Carver isn't sure if his brother is angry or amused, but Garrett laughs it off, stroking Isabela's thigh and saying something about her having two natural advantages. If Carver said something like that he's pretty sure he'd be slapped for his trouble, but his brother gets away with it and why must he always do that, always manage to seem suave and cool and interesting, while Carver is always treated like the unwanted extra in Garrett's personal play?

Merrill starts to slump, yawning, and Carver offers to walk her back to the alienage.

“Oh, no, I couldn't. I'll be fine. I've walked almost everywhere on my own, except the Clan were always there. I suppose that's not really _alone_ , then, but I'll be all right, I swear.”

Carver walks her out anyway, and Garrett isn't paying attention. “I'd _like_ to walk you home,” Carver says, trying not to look at her neck where Isabela touched it earlier. She's smooth and small and fragile, and he really likes her. Even when she starts babbling, which it seems she always does. Maybe especially then.

They walk, and she tells him about the Dalish. “Have you ever seen an aravel? A land-ship? They're marvellous, just like sea-ships, only less likely to sink. I don't really like the sea, too much water. Well, I suppose it _would_ be all water. What else would it be otherwise? Just a lot of fish, flopping about on the sand. I don't think you could make a ship sail through fish. The poor things wouldn't like it.”

“The ships or the fish?” he asks, entranced. When she gets started she seems to forget to be nervous, just talking and talking, and moving her hands to explain complicated things. He'd like to kiss her, only she would have to stop talking for that, and he doesn't think she ever will.

“Both,” she says, blinking up at him with those enormous elven eyes. “The fish wouldn't like being smushed and the ships, well, I don't think I'd like to smush anything. Would you?”

Carver would very much like to smush her, and the thought of it makes the back of his neck all hot. “I … um. Ha.” _Great, Carver, now you've lost the ability to talk_.

Merrill's eyes get even wider. “Oh! Have I said something wrong? You're going a funny colour and usually that means I've said something that means something else and I don't know what it is. Honestly, I do that all the time and I don't know why. What did I say? Please tell, I don't want to do it again by accident. What if I said it to someone important?”

Which is like a nice cold bucket of water. Carver is not important. Of course he isn't. He has never been important.

“Someone like my brother, you mean?” he says, feeling his hand clench and forcing it to open again.

“Your brother _is_ special, isn't he?” Merrill smiles. “Such a hero. He saved me from a giant spider, did I tell you?”

“He does that,” Carver says miserably. 

She tells him all about it, in a lot more detail than he would like, and then they have reached the elven alienage and she is going into her house. She pauses on the doorstep, looking inside, and then up at him. “Would you like to come in?”

Carver can't actually speak. Would he like to come in? Yes. Yes he would like to come in. He would like it very, very much, but all he can say is, “Umph?”

Merrill bites her lip, eyes darting from him into the darkness of her home and back again. “Only, you see, there might be a burglar and I'm not really used to being, um, indoors, and I'm never sure where I ought to check to see if there is someone _in_ there.”

Which makes a lot more sense. Horrible, horrible sense, but still. Carver nods. “Sure.” He goes in, checks behind all the doors while Merrill lights a candle stub. He looks inside all the cupboards and wardrobes (and her house is nicer than his uncle's; maybe they should all move down to the alienage) and then he's done and she is smiling politely at him with her hands locked safely behind her back.

“Tha-ankyou,” she says. “You're very sweet.”

“You're welcome,” he says. His stomach twists because she is clearly waiting for him to go. “Any time. Um. I'd better get home before my mother--” and he stops there because, _Really, Carver? You're going to talk about your_ mother _right now?_ “Anyway. Better go.”

“Come and visit me,” she says brightly, which makes him pause in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame and, Maker, he should say something.

“I really like...” he starts, but he can't say this, not now, not after all that talk of his brother and everything. “...elves,” he says lamely. Urgh.

“How _nice_ of you,” she trills, and Carver walks home, rapping his knuckles hard against his head every step of the way as a punishment for being such a damn coward.


	4. Chapter 4

“This is pointless,” Fenris says flatly, lowering his branch. It's hot today, under the sun in what has become their regular sparring ground, and Fenris has stripped to his waist. He's glistening in the sunlight, a sweat sheen on the skin between his tattoos, and Carver reckons he must be twice as wet as the elf, and three times as red in the face. Stupid elf, with his stupid tan. Only, Carver is pretty sure it isn't a tan because there's no line at his neck where his collar sits, nor at his wrists, and he's the colour of milky tea all the way to the waist of his stupidly low-slung leggings.

Carver makes an angry noise in the back of his throat, only it probably sounds whiny, and he lets out his breath in exasperation. “What? What's wrong now?”

“You are distracted. Something is bothering you.” Fenris drops the branch on the sand and works his shoulder, pressing the fingers of his other hand into the muscle as though it aches. “You cannot afford to be distracted when someone is trying to kill you.”

“Lucky you're not trying to kill me,” Carver snaps, leaning one hand on his knee and catching his breath. Fenris is pretty brutal, always working him to the point where he thinks he can't go on and then pushing him harder so that his muscles scream at him in the morning. It's good for him, Carver knows, but he resents it all the same.

“Maybe I should,” Fenris mutters, stretching out his shoulder some more and then fetching his canteen. He drinks out of it, splashes a little on his face and neck, and offers it up, blinking at Carver. His eyelashes are wet. They're much longer than Merrill's, Carver thinks, and groans because that is the stupidest comparison to make, ever.

He takes the canteen and drinks from it, hands it back, and collapses onto the sand. Fenris folds up neatly next to him, not close enough to touch but near enough that Carver can feel the heat radiating off him. He's steaming, ever so slightly. He smells like sweat and leather and, well, elf. It's ridiculous that Carver has decided elves have a particular smell, but they do, a wild weird smell that he can't explain any way other than _elf_.

 _Don't think about how people smell_ , he tells himself firmly. _It's abnormal_.

Fenris is looking at him sidelong and Carver sits up a bit, drawing in a long heavy breath through his nose and mostly getting another lungful of elf. Yup. Abnormal. _Stop that_.

Fenris is _still_ looking at him, waiting patiently, and Carver makes a face. “Okay! Okay. Maybe … look.” Fenris is probably the closest thing to someone he can talk to right now, making this his best shot at unburdening himself, but it's going to be an awkward conversation no matter how he starts, so he's just going to have to do it. 

It isn't as though they're good friends, though. They come out to practice maybe every couple of days, whenever Garrett doesn't ask Fenris to join him on one of his 'jaunts' and sometimes even when he does. It still feels good to know that someone is turning Garrett down, even if Carver isn't entirely sure that it has anything to do with _him_ so much as Fenris being stubborn. Still, the twist of his brother's mouth every time Fenris tells him 'no' is a sour little victory, and Carver can't help but smirk whenever it happens.

He sees more of Fenris now than of Garrett, not that he would ask Garrett about _anything_ like this. This is a Bethany conversation. But, of course, Bethany is dead. The thought hurts his chest. So. There isn't anyone else to talk to.

“Humans and elves are … different,” he says, glancing at Fenris to see if he's laughing, but he isn't, of course, just watching and listening. “Um. So, you know, my brother met this elven woman who, well, had a kid with a human. So that happens, sometimes. I suppose.”

Fenris blinks at him through his fringe. “Are you asking me about human-elven reproduction?”

“No, really no,” Carver says hurriedly, because, urgh, no. “That's not … no. Hah. No fear of _that_.”

Fenris frowns. “Then what?”

“I … Aveline told me that when you … court someone, you should give their mother a goat.” Carver winces, not least of all because Aveline had volunteered this information after catching him eyeing up Isabela from behind, and had then cautioned him about the sort of diseases you could catch from dock rats until he had had to tell her he needed a piss to get away.

Fenris' eyes widen a little. “An unusual custom,” he says.

“Yeah, well. That's my point. Sort of.” 

Carver takes a deep breath, staring at his boots. He can see one of Fenris' feet out of the corner of his eye and even now, sitting in the sand with his arms wrapped around his knees, Fenris keeps his heels off the ground, resting only on the balls of his feet as though ready to move at a moment's notice.

“How,” he starts, and stops. This is stupid. _He_ is stupid. He's also probably never going to get to ask this question again. “How would, uh, someone do that if the, say, person was an elf?”

He sees Fenris' toes curl, and curses himself for being an idiot. It's so obvious. Fenris is going to tell her and then Garrett will find out and, oh, _Maker_ , that will be worse than _anything_.

Fenris is silent for what feels like an age, and then clears his throat. “I … do not think it is very different for elves and humans. I would not know. I have never … been involved in what you might call a normal courtship.”

Carver looks at him, surprised. “Really? What, never?”

Fenris is staring at his own toes, frowning, which is normal, but there is a tension in his jaw that is really _not_ normal. Well, it's normal for when he's hacked off about something, and Carver is getting better and better at recognising this. Sure, the difference between Fenris angry and Fenris uncaring and Fenris who-has-a-hangover-and-wants-you-to-stop-making-loud-noises is pretty damn subtle, but Carver thinks he has it down to an art. Right now? Fenris is … not angry. Something else. Embarrassed? No, that doesn't seem right, either.

Carver shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. “Me neither. I mean, almost, but it never goes anywhere. Everyone's always in love with my brother.” There, he said it. Now Fenris can laugh at him. _Good one, Carver_.

“Not everyone.”

Fenris moves, undulating to his feet like some kind of bloody snake, if snakes had feet, and he is pulling on his undershirt and his armour before Carver can scramble up out of the sand. “What? Are we done?”

Fenris nods curtly, not looking at him. “I need a drink.”

Carver thinks they're going to the Hanged Man, but Fenris stalks back to his mansion and Carver thinks, _Oh, well, right. Obviously he meant a drink on his own_ , but Fenris doesn't shut the door behind him and when Carver doesn't follow him in he pauses in the hall, not looking back but tilting his head the way he always does when talking to Carver over his shoulder.

“Are you coming?”

“Right! I mean, yes. Okay.” Carver shuts the door, and blinks at the musty darkness inside. _Someone needs to give this place some love before it falls apart completely_. That someone is _not_ going to be him, or Fenris, by the looks of things.

Fenris heads to the kitchen, and washes his face and hands under the pump. He gestures at it, wiping his face on what looks like part of a curtain. “Go ahead, if you like.”

Carver, a little leery, pumps some of the chilly water over his head, but just shakes it out, refusing the use of Fenris' rather grubby curtain fragment. He wipes his eyes on the hem of his shirt, and Fenris is opening a door he hasn't noticed before, a low wooden one that creaks horribly. He disappears into the gloom and comes back after a minute or so, his arms full of dark dusty bottles, kicking the door shut behind him.

“You have a wine cellar?” Carver is astonished.

Fenris pushes three bottles into Carver's hands and jerks his head. “Come.”

It's so strange, sitting in Fenris' crumbling mansion in the mid-afternoon, drinking wine in the gloom. The windows are shrouded in dusty curtains (torn here and there, for now obvious reasons) and everything is covered in what Carver can only think of as a layer of neglect.

“Why don't you move to the alienage?” Carver asks. They are drinking straight out of the bottles. Carver doesn't know much about wine, except that this wine is red and nothing like the vinegary stuff he's used to, so it must be good, and that Fenris cautioned him not to shake it up or empty the bottle completely, because of the residue in the bottom.

Fenris gestures with his bottle. “And leave all this?” He has taken off his gauntlets. In the murky shadows the tattoos on his hands glow like the trails of fireflies, only colder and brighter. “I have my own wine cellar, my own water pump. The neighbours are afraid to look me in the eye. What more could I want?”

This is downright talkative for Fenris, so Carver chooses to press him. “But, the alienage is all right. Merrill,” and he pauses, “well, she gets on all right.”

“The witch,” Fenris growls, showing his teeth. He takes another swig of wine. “I am sure she has them all bent to her will by now. That is what mages do.”

Carver opens his mouth to protest, but then thinks about it for a moment. “Is that what you think my brother does?”

Fenris shakes his head sharply. “Not like her. Your brother uses his natural swagger to get what he wants. _She_ is different.”

Carver thinks she is, really, quite different. “I like … elves,” he says, and flushes. That's twice now he's said that, and both times he's felt immediately stupid. “I wouldn't mind, I think. Living in the alienage. No worse than Gamlen's house. And I wouldn't have to share a room with my brother.”

“Do you hate him?” Fenris has his long legs up, heels resting on the table. It's his table, Carver supposes, but he is not himself comfortable enough to do that in his own house (his mother would have his head) let alone someone else's. 

“No.” Carver thinks about it. “Yes. _No_. But sometimes it'd be nice if he _wasn't_ my brother. Someone else's brother, maybe.”

“And you would not be who you are.” Fenris puts his bottle on the floor and reaches for another with his foot, catching it up between his fucking _toes_ , which is completely unbelievable. _Has he already finished one? Andraste's arse, that was quick._ Carver tips up his own bottle and chokes on the gritty dustiness in the bottom.

Fenris chuckles. “I warned you,” and he yanks out the cork of the next with his teeth, spitting it across the room and smirking. “Have another.”

Carver bristles, because he is being laughed at, but, well, it's Fenris, and he did warn him, and really by now he is ceasing to care. He's tired and sore and reasonably drunk, and it feels both irresponsible and really, really good.

He reaches for another. “Maybe I don't want to be who I am,” he sighs.

Fenris makes a noise in his throat that sounds like a growl. “There is no-one else that you can be.”


	5. Chapter 5

Garrett has picked up another stray, a grumpy ex-Warden who heals people out of the so-called goodness of his heart, and it doesn’t take long for Carver to get thoroughly sick of hearing about the plight of mages in Kirkwall. “Oh, boo-hoo,” he mutters, sticking his thumbs in his belt and slouching. “Poor you, so magical, so special, so bloody annoying.”

He mutters it too loudly, though, and the ex-Warden shoots him a dirty look. “I suppose you think that your brother ought to be locked up in the Circle, then?” The ex-warden, who is also a mage (and how does Garrett find these people?) lifts his eyebrows in what Carver feels is nothing less than a challenge. _Come at me_ , Carver thinks. _I'll bust that pretty face_.

“Wouldn’t mind having the bedroom to myself,” he says tightly because, really, don’t talk to him about his brother.

“I’m sure you’d do just fine on your own,” the mage goes on, twisting his thin mouth into a grimace. “No-one to tell you what to do. No-one to slow you down. I don’t know why you even bothered to go back for your family in Lothering. You could have gone on to Denerim, joined up with Loghain the Traitor, left your sister _and_ brother to die in a ditch. No more magic in the family, no more problems. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“You shut your mouth!” Carver feels the blood rush to his cheeks, because no-one gets to talk about Bethany, not like that, and this mage is about to get his jaw broken.

“Carver!” Always, always, Garrett has to get involved. “Play nice,” he says.

The mage doesn’t seem to think that this also applies to him. “And I suppose if you ever manage to get some poor girl knocked up, it won’t bother you that there’s a good chance, with your blood, that the baby will be a mage too? You can hand it right over to the Templars. Easy as pie.”

“Oh, Carver’s probably safe there,” Garrett says, laying a hand on the mage’s shoulder. “He’d have to get the girl to tolerate him for at least, say, five minutes at a time.”

Fenris shifts restlessly. He doesn't say anything, but the tilt of his head and the sidelong glance at Carver’s clenched hands is oddly soothing. Someone acknowledges that he’s angry, at least, which helps him swallow his bile and grit his teeth and not punch his brother in the back of the head.

The next time the mage starts talking about the indentured servitude of mages, Fenris snorts, tossing his head and looking up at the sky.

“What? Don’t tell me you _too_ think all mages should be locked up in dungeons for no more fault of theirs than being _born_.”

Fenris doesn’t look at the mage but down the alley to his right. “I think you overestimate the inconvenience of your incarceration, and underestimate the potential danger you pose to others.”

“So you’re fine with mage slavery? That doesn’t bother you?”

Fenris does look at him then, and Carver can’t see his eyes but he _can_ see the way the mage recoils, as though he’s been slapped. “You keep using that word as though you know what it means. Believe me when I say that you do _not_.”

“Lads,” Garrett says lightly. “Let’s not, all right? Save the fangs for anyone who gets in our way.”

Carver watches Fenris clench and unclench his hands, twice, and later, when Fenris has retreated to his dank mansion and Carver has to try and ignore his brother feeling Isabela up in the Hanged Man, he thinks about slavery and the Circle, and it’s all too confusing.

“Varric,” he starts, tipping the dregs of his piss-poor beer around in his cup. “What’s Tevinter like?”

“A terrible place,” the dwarf tells him, shuffling cards and fanning them deftly from one hand to the other. “If you’re not a Magister you’re nobody, and if you’re nobody you’re either a slave or doing your best not to become one. Life is cheap, and short, unless you’re a Magister, and even then you have to stay on your toes because someone out there wants what you have, and if you’re not careful they’ll find a way to take it.” He lets the cards fall in a cascade from one hand to the other, smooth and even, and Carver wishes he could do that, _be_ like that, really _really_ good at something that made other people sit up and pay attention. “Why do you ask, Junior? Planning on taking a holiday?”

Carver snorts. “No.” He makes a face. “Fenris ... sometimes he tells me things about Tevinter and I--” He shakes his head. “It sounds really awful.”

“Well, he was a slave, little Hawke. No-one enjoys that.” Varric shrugs. “Ask around the alienage about what it’s like to be an elf in Kirkwall. You won’t get a pretty answer.”

“I don’t really get it,” and Carver leans his cheek on his fist, scowling at the tabletop. “Elves in the alienage. Mages in the Circle. Why does everyone hate everyone else? It’s not even as though they have a good reason. I mean, Orlesians, sure, they pissed all over Ferelden, so we hate them for that. But what did _elves_ ever do?”

“A good question.” Varric smiles and pours them both a drink, the cards vanishing into his coat. “When you work it out, you can tell me.”

“Fenris hates mages because they made him a slave,” Carver says slowly. “That ... _Anders_ hates the Templars because they made him a prisoner.”

“A distinction he probably wouldn’t appreciate,” Varric says evenly, “but a valid one. And what about you, Junior? Who do you hate?”

Carver thinks about it. “Darkspawn,” he says at last. “That’s all right, isn’t it? Darkspawn? It’s not like anyone can say, ‘Darkspawn are people too.’”

The dwarf smiles. “No, that’s a good one. And I’m glad. For a moment there I thought you were going to say ‘Hawke’.”

“I don’t hate my brother,” Carver grumbles, glaring at Garrett over the edge of his mug. Garrett has his hand up Isabela's shirt, and Carver looks away from that because it burns his eyes. “I just wish he’d go away, sometimes.”


	6. Chapter 6

The first time that cracks appear in the Grey Warden's skin, spilling magic into the air like blood, it scares Carver shitless.

_Abomination. Maleficar. Abomination!_

_This_ is what Bethany was afraid of, what they both feared (for her) together, a monster in the night (that she could _become_ ) worse than the hated Templars, and Carver has his sword up and between himself and the abomination before he can blink.

“Carver!” Garrett grabs his arm. “Stop that! Don't be a bloody idiot!”

“He's an _abomination_!” It shouldn't need to be explained.

The abomination is looking at him, eyes pits of blue fire and, shit, Carver is going to _die_.

Garrett tries to yank him away, as if _he_ were the dangerous one, but he can't make Carver budge, which ought to be satisfying only they are going to _die_ and Garrett is being a reckless, mindless fool instead of toasting the abomination where it stands.

“Carver, it's only Anders! It's only Justice!” And he tries to explain, about the spirit living inside the mage, about demons and spirits and good and evil, and it doesn't make any sense. A demon is a demon, surely? The mage is glowing _blue_ and that can't be _good_ , can it? Isn't this what mages fear?

_Isn't this what father warned us about?_

Slowly, Carver lowers his sword. “You _knew_ this?” He doesn't take his eyes off the mage-abomination, but the question is for his brother. “You brought him along … you let him _heal_ me … and you bloody _knew_?!”

“You're being an ass,” Garrett tells him, putting his body between Carver and the abomination. “Anders is harmless.”

This, with the broken bodies strewn at his feet. Carver watches the blue light fade from the warden's eyes, the cracks in his skin close, sees the way he wavers on the verge of collapse, and the way that Garrett catches him, taking his weight, murmuring something encouraging. Carver sees all this and he _knows_. 

_Oh, Maker's_ arse _, Garrett_.

“This is … unbelievable.” Garrett ignores him, one arm hooked around the abomination's chest as he feeds him a potion. _Maker_.

It's a long walk back to Darktown. Carver watches them all the way, seething. Later (the warden safely back in his damn clinic) Garrett buys Carver a drink and tries to tell him that it isn't what it looks like, that Anders is a good person, that's he's a powerful ally, that they need him.

“Remember the mission?” he says, holding up his cup like he's making some stupid toast. “The Brothers Hawke in the Deep Roads? More coin than you can spend? Wine, women and song, and wealth beyond your wildest dreams?”

Carver doesn't feel like _he's_ the one who has forgotten the mission. “We don't need him,” he says, fingers tight on his beer mug. “We don't need help from … that.”

“We'll need him in the Deep Roads,” Garrett says cheerfully. “Remember all the Darkspawn? Anders was a Grey Warden. He's been down there, he's fought them. He has the maps, the knowledge, the experience. Healing magic doesn't hurt, either. He's an asset.”

“Maybe we don't need to go to the Deep Roads,” Carver says slowly, something bubbling up in his chest. “We've got a lot of coin already. We could do something else. Something--” less dangerous, “--safer.”

Garrett snorts. “Kirkwall has nothing for a couple of Fereldan refugees, and you know it. Anyway, who wants 'safe'? _Don't_ tell me you're suddenly afraid of the dark.”

Carver grits his teeth. His brother is impossible. “We could go back to Ferelden,” he says, and Garrett's face changes, just like that, into a sudden mask of anger.

“ _No_. There's nothing in Ferelden. I'm not going back to the place where--” and he breaks off, frowning into his drink.

 _But Ferelden is home_ , only Carver can't say it aloud, because maybe, maybe it's not true anymore, and if Ferelden isn't home, then where _is_? It can't be Kirkwall, and if it isn't Kirkwall or Ferelden then Carver has nothing _left_.

“We should have buried Bethany,” he mutters, and _there_ , that anger, a sudden spasm in Garrett's face, and for a moment Carver thinks that his brother is going to hit him.

“Will you _shut up_ about Bethany?” Garrett makes a fist and thumps it onto the table, too loud, too hard, and Carver sees it hurt him. “All I ever hear from you is, 'Bethany, Bethany, Bethany'! Move on, Carver! Bethany's dead and I can't bring her back!”

 _But I don't ever talk about Bethany_ , and he knows it's true because talking about her (my sister, my twin, the other half of my _self_ ) is too painful, and how dare his brother accuse him of this? He opens his mouth to say _something_ but Garrett cuts him off.

“Isn't it enough that I see her every time I _look_ at you?”

His brother's eyes are like bruises, and there is a moment where Carver could reach across and touch him, just one touch, one hard grip-of-the-arm that might somehow let them share this loss, this fear that they themselves might be responsible, that they could have done something. One moment to admit that they are both human and that they both miss their sister.

He can't. Carver shoves back his chair, knocking over his cup and stepping away. 

“No,” he says. It's not enough. “Fuck you, Garrett.”

Is this regret? This aching feeling as he walks away, out of the door and into Lowtown, and home (which is not a home) to Gamlen's house, to the room his brother will come back to later, stinking of drink and either furious or pretending that he has forgotten? Maybe. He can't be sure.

Carver sheds his clothes and climbs into bed, pulling the covers over his head, and hates Kirkwall so much it feels like acid eating away at him. _Bethany would have hated it here_. He locks the fingers of each hand together under his pillow and hates, and wishes, and feels his sister's fear of the dark like a lump in his chest that threatens to choke him, and every breath he takes is a small victory against the night.


	7. Chapter 7

Carver is never sure of the distance between admiration and envy, envy and jealousy, jealousy and hatred, but he thinks he might envy his brother's ability to pretend that things are still fine, that bad things never happened, and that the whole of the world is a marvellous joke, existing only to fuel his own amusement. That is what Garrett does, flirting with Isabela, poking Anders, teasing Merrill, jesting with Varric and making awkward banter with Aveline (who is really the awkward one, never seeming quite sure whether she is the butt of the joke or one of its many participants). Carver watches him, and hates him, and envies him, and sometimes (though he won't admit this even to himself) admires him a little. His brother is so easy with people, so self assured. Carver thinks he will never be like that, so what's the point of even trying?

And then, one sunny afternoon, they find themselves on the beach and Isabela tells him a story about a duel on the sand in the water, and he's completely sure that she's making fun of him, but he challenges her to a wrestle in the shallows and she accepts, eyes glittering wickedly.

He would have won, he's pretty sure, but when he has a grip on her she twists, pressing her bosom against his wrist and he gasps, letting her go. She catches one of his ankles and knocks him down, straddling him and pushing him into the sea. Salt water fills his eyes and his mouth, and he splutters, and Isabela pulls his head up above the waves long enough to sing, “Forfeit!” at him before shoving him under again.

He emerges, spitting out the sea, while Isabela laughs, but it's okay, really, and he lunges for her, hands brushing her sides before she skips merrily away from him.

“Oh, puppy, don't you know when you've had enough?”

Someone chuckles, a deep sound that he knows, though not as well as he'd like. “He does _not_.”

Carver slicks his hair back out of his eyes and, okay, that's something. Fenris has stripped to his leggings, and is ankle deep in the water, watching Carver lurch about trying to get his footing. His markings gleam a little in the sunlight, and he has his hands on his hips, a considering look on his face. His hair is wet. It looks like he's been swimming -- Garrett's a little way away in nothing but his soaking-wet trousers, playing with Duchess who loves the sea and won't stop barking.

“Oh, yeah?” That's probably not the _best_ response he could have come up with , but Carver chalks it up to 'water on the brain'. “Well, come on, if you think you're hard enough.” Much better.

Fenris laughs, actually _laughs_ , and before Carver can decide if he ought to be indignant about that, the elf is on him, hands grappling his wrists and pulling them close to twist them up and force Carver down.

Oh, no rutting _way_.

Carver pushes, pushes, _hard_ , and Fenris pulls back, and then it's a matter of feet and strength, and Carver has him on the back foot, and they tumble and fall and Carver twists to pull Fenris under him, tangling their legs together until the elf is under the water, breaching to cough and laugh and say, “Forfeit, Hawke! I forfeit!”

Carver whoops, pulls his hands away to thrust them into the sky. “I _win_!” He tries to catch his breath and fails because Fenris is under water again, and he has to grab the elf by the back of his head and pull him to the surface. “I win,” he says again, marvellous and full of his own glory. “I'm stronger than the elf!”

Fenris laughs, takes a faceful of waves, and splutters. “You win!” he gasps, and that, more than anything, makes Carver smile.

No-one is watching; no-one else cares. But for Carver is it important, and he carries it home with him, a flare of light in his chest even when Garrett and Isabela get rid of him outside the tavern and he staggers home, salt-damp and crazy with it, Duchess bunting playfully against his knees.


	8. Chapter 8

“Isabela said,” Merrill confides in a stage whisper, “that the next time we came here she'd teach me to do …. 'body shots'?”

Carver doesn't know what that means, but the idea of Isabela teaching Merrill to do _anything_ in the tavern is like a shock to his crotch, and he spends some time hiding behind a chair before he is comfortable enough to sit down, drink his ale, and watch his brother flirt sidelong with the pirate and the mage _and_ Merrill, and it disgusts him. Merrill isn't like the other two; the pirate is an open book, so open her pages fall out, and as for the mage, well, Carver has seen how Garrett and Anders look at one another and he can _tell_ what that means. It's only a matter of time.

But, Merrill. She's delicate, innocent and lovely, and Carver wants to drag her away from his brother, to tell her, “He's not worth it, he's not worth _you_ ,” but the way Merrill looks at Garrett is enough to make Carver choke on his shitty beer and put down his mug, thirsty but unhappy. There's nothing to say, nothing he can do to explain to her that his brother is a bleeding idiot, a fool, an arsehole, the worst kind of man for her to look at so softly and for so long.

And so. He finds himself wandering the city alone tonight, walking up stair after stair after stair, and now he knows that he is a turn or two away from Fenris' mansion, dark and depressing as it is, or the Blooming Rose, the best whorehouse in Kirkwall.

Best, or so he's heard. His brother seems to favour it; Isabela said that her tab is paid up to the end of the year, and what does that even mean?

But here, he chooses one turn over another, and the Rose is a bright beacon, shedding light and satisfied customers into the street.

He goes in, pockets full of coin, and when the girl on the desk asks to see his 'credentials' he assumes she doesn't mean his wedding tackle, and shows her his purse instead. She hums, smiles, and asks him what kind of thing he wants, tonight. Women, men, elves...

“I like elves,” he says and, Maker, he must be drunk, because the words come out of him so easily, and the girl laughs, takes his arm, and leads him up the stairs.

“We have all sorts, messere,” she says, and he catches a glimpse of something he shouldn't have, a couple falling through a doorway, giggling; one of them is covered in white lines, and Carver feels his world condense into something hard and hot and impossible.

“What, the--” but then he sees it again, another one, lined over in white, and it's not Fenris, it can't be _Fenris_ , because of the _breasts_ , and Carver doesn't know what to think.

The girl sees him looking, and pats his arm, humming gently. “Oh, the tattoo fetish. It's so popular right now. Would you like...?” She leaves the question hanging, and Carver must say something that makes up her mind, because he is thrust into a room and left alone long enough that he starts to regret coming here.

There is a bed. He sits on it, thinks about taking off his boots, thinks again, and then the door is opening, and a girl comes in, much less awkward than he. She's young, or.... maybe not? There's something in her face that says she is far, far older than he is, that she has seen more, knows more, and that really, he is a child by comparison. She smiles. That's when he sees the lines, white on peach, decorating her skin.

They aren't tattoos. They're just paint, drawn on her in a simulacrum of the tattoos Carver knows so well, and a poor copy because they streak pointlessly across her body, with none of the delicacy and substance of the original.

But. She is young-ish and pretty enough, and she comes to him with intent, something he hasn't much known before. “Hullo,” she says. “Would you like to be my master?”

It's messy and awkward, but Carver feels it is successful enough -- and, really, anything is better than trying to work something out at home, in the room his brother or _mother_ could burst into any moment, demanding to know if he is awake, and if so could he help with something in the kitchen?

The girl does everything he needs (what little that is), and afterwards she strokes his hair. She has a long nose, and high cheekbones, but the bridge of her nose is sort of normal, and her ears aren't particularly pointy. “Are you an elf?” he asks her, realising too late that it could be taken the wrong way.

She chuckles, petting his chest. “Half,” she says. “Only half.”

He wants to tell her that it's okay, that half is all right, that he wouldn't mind if she were full, either way, but she is getting up, arranging her clothes, touching her hair, and he lets it go.

“Why the paint?” he asks.

She turns, gives him a look over her shoulder. “Didn't you like it?”

He did. But. “Where did you get the idea?”

“There's an elf,” she says easily, finding a pin and repositioning it in her hair. “Lives in Hightown. Covered in tattoos. People ask for it, so,” and she pauses, blinking at him. “Didn't you ask for it? It costs extra.”

Carver pays the extra, and tries not to see the others in the foyer, painted up in white and begging for attention.

He comes back again, paint or no paint, and it's never quite enough, but for now it will have to do.


	9. Chapter 9

“Saw you at the Rose the other night, puppy,” Isabela teases, bumping into his side. “Did you get your itch scratched?”

Carver can feel his face going red. “Did _you_?”

She chuckles, draping an arm over his shoulder and leaning on him. “Oh, after I saw you I couldn’t get those pretty blue eyes out of my head. So, I guess you could say I had _an_ itch scratched, but now I think I might have a new one.”

That sounds suspiciously like a come-on, but Carver refuses to fall for it. “I bet there’s a lot of blue eyes at the Rose,” he says grumpily, and Isabela scruffs up his hair at the back.

“Not _Fereldan_ blue,” she says with too much feeling to mean any of it. “Not intense, furious blue. Not blue flashing under drawn eyebrows that scowl and frown and curse. _Not_ the blue _I’m_ itching for.”

She pushes away, winking at him, and trots ahead to hook an arm through Garrett’s, pointing out a lady in a ridiculous hat and laughing.

What. The. Void. Did she just...? No. That can’t be right.

But then again, it's Isabela, so maybe that _was_ exactly what it sounded like. Carver has no illusions about her actually liking him, or anyone, really, and sure, maybe she wouldn’t say no if he knocked on her door, maybe she’d smirk and invite him in and ... and whatever came after that might be the best thing that could ever happen to him. It could be better than anything he’s ever dreamed. 

And after _that_? She’d probably bed his brother, if she hasn’t already.

It’s a sobering thought, really, and he carries it with him up the steps to Hightown, around a corner and a corner, through a door and up the staircase. Fenris is always home in the evenings, and he has never seemed unwelcoming whenever Carver blunders in, especially if, like tonight, Carver is carrying several bottles of wine found in a crate in a smuggler’s cave.

They drink a bit, talk about the Qunari, about Saemus Dumar and whether or not he’s crazy, about the stick permanently shoved up Aveline’s rear-end, and eventually about Rivain, and Rivaini pirates, and what, exactly, they might be after.

“It sounds like an invitation,” Fenris agrees, leaning back in his chair and tilting it dangerously on two legs. “The pirate is a woman of the world. There is nothing coy about her.” He tilts his head on one side, hair falling in his eyes. “You have been spending time at the Blooming Rose.” It is and is not quite a question.

Carver reddens. “Yeah.” _Please, Maker, don’t ask me about it_.

Fenris shifts, eyeing Carver through his hair, his expression blank, just _blank_. “And it is sufficient.” Again, this is a half-question.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Carver can’t keep the edge out of his voice because this is getting personal, and he isn’t sure if he wants Fenris to know, and he feels a little guilty about the paint and, and the _elves_ , and it’s too complicated to explain.

Fenris closes his eyes and leans further back, exposing the length of his throat. He has a bottle in his lap, propped obscenely on his crotch, and the fingers wrapped around its neck are long and brown and streaked with silver. His grip shifts. Carver shivers.

“This trading in flesh. You deserve more than that,” Fenris says quietly. It sounds like a sigh. “Someone who will go down on their knees for you not because they have to, not because you have paid for them. Simply because they wish to.”

It’s amazing how those words in that voice make his mouth go dry. 

“At least the pirate would suffice, in that respect. She is hardly the kind to make an unwilling offer.”

Fenris opens his eyes, and Carver realises how red his own face is, how hard he is gripping the edge of the table, how far he has leaned forward, and how green are Fenris' eyes, gleaming in the candlelight.

“I … I don't think I should really...” _Go on, Carver, use actual_ words _. You know some. Try them out_. “It's a bad idea,” he says lamely, and makes it worse by adding, “My brother,” before trailing off, feeling hot and awkward and very foolish.

Fenris watches him for a moment before letting his chair settle back onto the floor, stretching out an arm to place his bottle firmly on the table. “You think too much about what your brother wants,” he says, gaze slicing away to somewhere on the floor to his left. “You might think more about what _you_ want.”

“I don't know what I want.” It's true. Carver has no idea. He's pretty sure, though, that he doesn't want what he has, and that's really miserable.

Fenris nods, not looking at him. “When you do know what you want,” he says slowly, “I will be here.”

It's good to know. Carver feels grateful that the elf listens to him and, Maker, it's been an age since he had anyone to talk to about the things that really matter, though his sex life probably doesn't matter all that much to anyone but himself.

“Thank-you,” he says, and he means it.

Fenris nods again, and reaches for another bottle.


	10. Chapter 10

“Take your _bleeding_ job and _shove_ it!” Carver yells, and this time, he’s had enough. Smuggling a Qunari mage out of the city? Garrett is _crazy_. Getting involved in their politics is insane. And that Chantry sister is just creepy, wandering the streets at night _looking_ for a fight, _looking_ for a rescue. He doesn’t like the way she talks to his brother, and the way she looks at _him_ , and the whole thing stinks.

Garrett says he judges people too much on appearances, but that’s all people are, right? A bunch of appearances and actions and, really, what else is there to go by?

“Calm down,” Garrett says sharply, but Carver won’t.

“I’m _out_. Get Varric or Aveline or your fancy sodding _prince_.” Because of _course_ Garrett has made friends with a prince. That makes _total_ sense. That’s not _completely bloody insane_.

Garrett doesn’t come home that night, or the next day, and their mother bites her lip and worries and asks Carver if he oughtn’t to go looking for him.

“He’s a big boy,” Carver tells her. “He can take care of himself.”

He doesn’t go looking, and that night he wakes up because someone is in his room, trying to climb onto his bed, and whoever it is stinks of sweat and booze and blood. “Garrett?!”

“You little shit, we _needed_ you,” and Garrett is _drunk_ , drunker than Carver’s ever known him. He kneels heavily on Carver’s thigh; Carver hisses at him to get off, but he doesn’t listen, shoving his elbow into Carver’s chest and leaning on it. “They tried to put a bleeding collar on Anders, and, oh, Aveline’s sodding hand, Maker’s _breath_ \-- we _needed_ you! Where the fuck _were_ you?!”

“Get off me, you _arsehole_!” Carver jerks his arm out from under the blankets, slamming the back of his fist into Garrett’s cheekbone, and his brother gasps, reeling back before making a grab for Carver’s wrist. They scrabble against each other, Carver caught in his bedclothes, and it’s messy, and painful, and desperate, until Carver levers them both off the bed. Garrett’s head hits the floor with a horrible thud and he groans, and Carver pins him down even though he’s not struggling any more.

Duchess barks once, and then there's the pad of heavy paws across the kitchen, the thump of her head against the door, and wary snuffling.

Garrett takes long, shuddering breaths, and for a giddy moment Carver thinks he’s laughing. “He's dead, anyway. I did everything, and he... I couldn’t fix it. I tried, but I couldn’t. I can’t ... I won’t ... Maker ...”

Carver stares at him. This is ... not happening. “You’re drunk,” he whispers fiercely, but Garrett tries to sit up, and he lets him, sitting back on his brother’s thighs.

“I’m _sorry_.”

Carver’s hands bunch into fists and, oh, how he wants to hit Garrett now. “You’re an ass.”

“I never told you,” he starts, leaning on one hand, sagging like a puppet with its strings hanging loose.

Carver doesn’t want to hear it. “Don’t.”

“That I was sorry--”

“Shut _up_!”

“--about--”

“Just SHUT UP!” Carver shakes him, shaking until he hears his brother’s teeth snap together. He lets go, scrambling away from Garrett like he’s on fire, and he doesn’t know if he’s afraid of what his brother might say or how badly he wants to hurt him for it, but he _is_ afraid, and the fear is like a wound.

Garrett stays on the floor, wheezing a little, and his breath is a rasp on Carver's brain, filing him down in ragged chunks until he just can't bear it any longer. He pulls on his clothes, ignoring his brother's weak, “What are you doing?” and heads out of the room, out of the house, into Lowtown and up to the Hanged Man where Varric and Isabela are still playing cards and drinking.

Varric looks surprised, but deals him in. “Rough night, Junior?”

“Yeah,” Carver says, pouring himself a drink. Maker, the ale here is like piss, but it does the trick.

Isabela cocks an eyebrow at him. “Oh, I _bet_ I can work it out of you,” and her smile is warm enough to make him forget, for a while, how cold he feels.


	11. Chapter 11

Anders is fine, it turns out, and Carver is slightly confused and surprisingly relieved to find out that whoever Garrett meant, it was not the abomination who died. He chooses to believe that his relief is due to his brother seeming so stuck on the mage, the ex-warden, the bleeding liability in their midst, and Carver has never seen Garrett so repulsively sweet on anyone. It's a little sickening, and kind of amusing, and definitely new. They talk, close, dark head bowed against light, and Carver feels left out, and sort of glad of it. Garrett hasn't said anything about the other night, hasn't tried to bring up whatever he had been trying to say, and has acted as though nothing ever happened. This is good. This, at least, is normal.

He is, however, leaving Carver alone, and this, while also good, is _not_ normal.

Carver starts to get a little stir-crazy after a week of it, and though he still pulls Fenris out of his den every couple of days for a mutual bludgeoning and a whole bunch of drinks, he misses the action.

This is why he finds himself in Varric's rooms at the Hanged Man, fidgeting and waiting for the dwarf to finish writing down his latest (and probably worst yet) inspiration.

“With a flourish,” Varric mutters as he writes, nib scrabbling fast and surprisingly neatly across the page, “Ser Sullen drove his sword through the blood mage, pinning her to the ground. Her scream faltered in her throat, even as her eyes blazed defiance. 'You,' she swore with her last breath, 'I curse unto your dying day. Hereafter, I curse you to a life of deepest passion!' Ser Sullen drew back, confused, for how could this be a death curse? How could passion be so terrible? Little did he know that his troubles were only just beginning.” He sits back, looking pleased, lips moving as he reads the passage over again, and Carver can't contain himself any longer.

“What does that mean? What's wrong with passion?”

Varric chuckles, reaching for his mug. “Passion, without love? My young friend, that would be a lonely lifetime. Imagine!”

Carver twitches, frowning. “Love without, um, 'passion' sounds worse. Like ... love with no, you _know_ , in it.”

The dwarf arches an eyebrow at him. “Really? But surely your love for your mother is, well, passionless?”

That's a pretty rude thing to say, and Carver bristles. “Don't you bring my mother into this!”

“She's a fine lady,” Varric says, smiling a little.

“Oh, don't...”

Varric grins. “Very charming, and quite, quite lovely. For a human.”

“I'm not in love with my mother!” Carver says hotly, and Varric chuckles, wiping a hand over his eyes.

“Of course you aren't. I was merely suggesting that she was well worth being in love with, were a man -- or even a dwarf -- to dare such a thing.”

“Stay _away_ from my mother,” Carver warns, which only makes Varric chuckle more.

“I will do my best to resist her otherwise irresistible charms,” he says, and Carver has no idea what to make of that, so he doesn't make anything of it. Varric blows on his page, drying the ink, and sets it aside, still grinning. It's somehow tolerable, though, because when Varric does it Carver doesn't feel like a child, more like an equal, someone who is part of the joke, and not just the butt of it. “So, Junior, I'm guessing you aren't here to lose money to me at cards. Though I'll take it from you, if you're offering.”

Carver takes a deep breath. Okay. This is it. “I thought maybe you might know someone who needs some work done.”

Varric doesn't look surprised, just nods, as if he expected this. “I might know someone.” 

“Well, I'm looking,” Carver says. It feels like a rebellion, and maybe it is, or it should be.

Varric picks up another pile of papers, shuffles through it, and plucks one out. “I might know someone who needs some goods retrieved. Not slaves,” he adds, as Carver opens his mouth. “I know how the elf would feel about that. I'm not too keen on it myself. But this is just some barrels gone missing from the docks.”

Carver can't help himself. “And you can't take of this yourself, because?”

The dwarf shrugs. “The name 'Hawke' gets around. This particular someone wants a Hawke involved.”

Oh, that. Carver grunts, shoving himself back in his chair and, yeah, he looks sullen, he knows it. “So this is a job for my brother.”

“Your brother isn't the only Hawke in Kirkwall,” Varric says, eyes unreadable. He smiles. It's a dangerous smile, Carver thinks, especially when his eyes give away so little. “Come on, Junior. Someone is willing to pay good coin for a Hawke to look after their business interests. And I have a Hawke here, right now, who's looking for something to do with his time. What could be more perfect?”

He's right, Carver knows it. So he smiles tightly, and says, “Sure, why not?” and that is the end, or the beginning, of that.

Varric comes with him, “For insurance,” he says. Carver doesn't know what he means, but he asks Fenris to join them and Fenris says yes, and when they meet Varric outside the Hanged Man that afternoon Isabela is there, joking and tossing a knife from one hand to the other.

“Hey, pup,” she says, running a hand down Carver's arm and grinning. “Goodness, you're getting big, did you know that? Fenris, have you seen how _big_ puppy is these days?”

“I had noticed,” Fenris says, looking away, and Carver's face burns, though whether it is because Isabela said it or that Fenris agreed, he can't be sure.

“Right,” he says, and they all look at him, look _at_ him, as though he is in charge and he realises that, this time, at least, he really is. It's a little scary, and kind of exciting, so he runs with it. “Varric, where are we going?”

“Darktown,” and the dwarf points. “There's a house down there that might make for the best place to start looking.”

Carver nods. “All right. Let's go.”

And they follow him. This is ... different. Carver tries very hard to look like he knows where they are headed, following Varric's murmured directions while Isabela makes small-talk with Fenris.

Somewhere along the way the small-talk turns into talk and then into something very much else. “Well, if you needed someone to ease the tension in your shoulders, sweet thing, then I'd be _more_ than happy to help.”

Fenris grunts, and Carver can feel him at his back, knows when the elf stops, looks around, shakes out one of his feet and stamps it back down again. “I do not _need_ anything like that.”

“But, if you _wanted_ ,” Isabela insists. “I know all about wanting. I could sort out your wants, your knots, your ... needs, if any of them popped up while we were looking.”

Carver does not turn around. He definitely doesn't, but he does stop, and does look over his shoulder for, you know, tactical reasons, and Isabela is at least an arm's-length away from Fenris, rocking back on her heels and looking ... seductive.

By contrast, Fenris is focussed. He meets Carver's eye and does not smile, but he says quite clearly, “My needs can take care of themselves.”

“You're no fun,” Isabela says, pouting.

Carver wants very much to say something, anything, but Varric gestures towards an unassuming door in a nondescript wall and says something like, “Here we are,” and Carver decides that the job is more important than getting involved in whatever is happening behind him.

“Right.” He takes a deep breath. “I guess ... we go in, we find the stuff, we take it, and if anyone gets in our way, we show them the arse end of their hats.”

Varric raises an eyebrow. Isabela giggles. Carver feels his face warm, but Fenris simply steps forward and puts a hand on the door. “Shall I?”

Carver nods, grateful, and Fenris pushes the door open.

After that, things get messy.

Hacking his way through smugglers is by now pretty much second nature, but these smugglers are different, better trained than usual and much better equipped, and when a mage steps into the melee Carver realises that raids like this require more planning, and they've brought no-one with them who can counter the magic, except maybe Fenris, who bellows something uninteligible and leaps at the woman before Carver can say anything or even blink. There is a brief struggle, and then Carver can't watch anymore, a hot breath of fire gusting across his shoulders, and that could have been his head, damnit!

There's a second mage (and a second group of smugglers; Varric is firing on them from the doorway while Isabela is nowhere to be seen, except when she suddenly _is_ , twin blades flashing in the firelight) and Carver runs at him, knocks him down, skewers him to the ground before he can pull his hands up and cast whatever he would have cast next. Carver twists his sword in the mage's chest, tearing him open, and that shouldn't feel good but it _does_ , and he turns to see that, largely, the fight has already been won.

He opens his mouth to say something by way of congratulations -- this is the part where his brother would quip, something inappropriate and frivolous, and everyone would laugh or groan and start piecing themselves back together. He doesn't have time, though, because the woman under Fenris' sword is not as dead as she looks, and her hands move feebly against her chest, summoning something terrible from her lifeblood and the earth.

“Shades!” Carver yells, and then, “DEMON!” and he is on the demon just like that, moving without thought, slamming into the thing before he can catch his breath. Everything falls away, the sound of Varric calling out something probably helpful and Isabela's shout fading into nothing, and it's just _him_ , his sword, his hands, this enemy, this fight. It happens, sometimes. It's like the steps of a dance, only Carver knows he can't dance, and this is so much easier, like his body just takes over, walking him through the motions until the demon shrinks away to nothing, screaming bitterly as it vanishes into the shadows.

He looks up. Varric is feeding Isabela a potion, which she doesn't seem to like at all, and Fenris is _staring_ at him, eyes wide and so green it takes Carver's breath away.

His knees think that this seems like a good moment to suddenly sit down, so he does, a heavy thump against the dirt floor. “Holy _shit_ ,” he gasps. “We did it.”

Fenris is kneeling at his side, tipping his head back to examine his eyes, hands flickering against him, looking for injuries and finding them all. The fingertips of his gauntlets are sharp points and they stab at Carver like friendly but dangerous wasps.

“Ow!”

“You are wounded.”

The rush gone, he realises that he _is_. There's a hot place on his back where the fireball did in fact scald him, and a nasty slice down one arm where he suddenly thinks he should probably wear some kind of armour. He's wrenched his ankle; it throbs nastily in his boot when he tries to stand up. Fenris offers him a potion, his face grave, and Carver drinks it without protest because, _ow, ow, ow,_ he has bruises with bruises on them and everything hurts.

“That was amazing,” Isabela says, crouched next to a corpse and going unabashedly through its pockets. “The way you _ran_ at that thing. Oh, puppy, I've got _goosebumps_. Twinges, even.” She grins, holding up a fat purse, and then lobs it at him.

He catches it, confused. Why would she give up this much coin to him? Isabela, the magpie. It makes no sense.

Varric kicks over another dead body, and toes his way cautiously through its belongings. “Lucrative work, Junior. I guess this was worth more than the advertised rate. Can't complain about that.”

Varric and Isabella strip the corpses and load up everything worth taking, while Carver and Fenris find the goods they were sent for, carefully carrying the barrels out to the street and guarding them against the inevitable Dartktown entrepreneurial spirit. Varric promises to collect the coin for the job, and Isabela volunteers to fence their loot, both of them arguing for a slightly bigger cut for their efforts. Carver agrees, tired and euphoric, because that worked out, didn't it? He should be pleased with himself.

He is, sort of, but the battle high is wearing off, and he accepts Fenris' offer of a shoulder to get him home. Halfway, he realises that they have bypassed Lowtown, that they are headed up a stairwell to Hightown, and he stops, protesting. “Where are we going?”

Fenris leans him against a wall, and looks solemn. “You are wounded,” he says. “Would you ... there is always the _healer_ ,” and Carver can feel the distaste in that word, “or ... do you wish that your mother should see you like this?”

No. Absolutely not. The smothering would be awful. “Then where are we...?”

“I have medical supplies,” Fenris says, kicking at the dirt with one elegant bare foot. “If you will come with me, I can help you.”

Which sounds pretty good, really. Carver lets Fenris help him up the steps, down an alley or two to the mansion, and collapses gratefully on Fenris' bed. It's stupidly soft. Carver has been sleeping on old straw in a sack for too long not to appreciate a real feather-filled mattress, and it's all he can do not to crawl into bed and pass happily out. He does lie down, though, legs sprawled off the side of the bed, because it's so inviting, and he is completely sure that he won't close his eyes, so that's okay.

But he must, in fact, doze off a little, because the next thing he knows is that something wet is being pressed against his arm and he starts, and _ow_ , his side is a mess of bruises, or maybe just one solid bruise all the way down.

The wet thing turns out to be a cloth. Fenris is dampening the gash in his arm. He cleans away the blood and muck, smearing another kind of potion on the raw edges of the wound that burns cold and makes Carver hiss, and then he binds it up, fingers cool and careful.

Carver watches him, struck by how intent he is, how focussed, how economical he makes each movement, no wasted energy or mishandling. There’s gore in his hair, a lump of something bloody knotting the white strands together. Carver wants to reach up and untangle it, and he could. Fenris is within reach.

He doesn’t. It isn’t cowardice. It’s just ... he doesn’t.

Long elven fingers hook into his buckles, easing them open. “What are you doing?” That was _not_ a squeak. It _wasn’t_.

Fenris frowns, peeling his armour away. “You may have a broken rib. Does it hurt here?” He presses down and the pain blossoms like fire in Carver’s chest, making him swear. “Does it hurt when you breathe?” Carver sucks in a breath and lets it out again.

“Yeah?”

“Does it ache or does it stab?”

“Aches, I guess.”

“Then you are probably only bruised,” Fenris says, and proceeds to strip him, taking his undershirt and kneeling down to unlace Carver’s boots.

“Hey,” Carver says weakly. “You don’t need to ... are you taking off my _trousers_?” 

The elf ignores him, setting the boots aside and then lifting one of Carver’s feet to roll up his cuff, inspecting the foot and turning it gently in his hands. “This is a sprain.” And he proceeds to strap it up, calluses scraping against the tender skin of Carver’s ankle.

Carver flops back on the mattress, feeling the numbness of the potion slathered on his arm spreading through his shoulder and across his chest. He exhales through his nose, really, _really_ tired, and stares at the ceiling, trying to keep his eyes open. There are cobwebs, and little spider nests in the corners. And a bloody great hole through which he can see the darkening sky. Why is there a _hole_ in the roof? Fenris clearly doesn’t give a crap about this place.

Urgh, this isn’t helping. He props himself up on one elbow, even though that _kills_ his bruised side, and cranes his neck to look down at the elf kneeling at his feet, head bowed beside his knee.

Oh. _Oh_. That looks definitely ... definitely something.

Carver has a thought, and he can’t help the bubble of laughter that bursts out of him.

Fenris’ head snaps up, eyes blazing in the gloom. “Are you _giggling_?”

“No... oh. But. No.”

The elf cocks his head on one side, and _that’s_ a look Carver hasn’t seen before. It’s sort of... uncertain. Tentative. Worried? Or maybe none of those, and Carver is just misreading him again. “Care to explain the joke?”

“Uh ...” He might be delirious. He lost some blood, maybe that’s it. There’s no other explanation for why he lets the words fall out of his mouth. “Just ... is this what you meant when you said I deserved someone who would go down on their knees for me?”

Fenris is silent, looking at him, and oh, _no_ , he _flickers_ , those damn tattoos flaring just enough to make Carver’s breath catch in his throat. _Maker, he’s going to_ kill _me_. The flickering is like starlight, running the visible length of him, and then it settles, Fenris dragging in a breath and exhaling slowly. “Is that what you want it to mean?”

Carver can’t answer that, can’t even _understand_ that. “What?”

The elf rises to his feet, all in one graceful motion, and braces a knee against the bed between Carver’s thighs. He has an open phial in one hand, a wad of cloth in the other, and he covers the bottle with the cloth and tips it up, letting the shiny liquid seep into the wadded fabric. He bends, _How can he possibly hold himself up like that?_ and leans over to touch the cloth to Carver’s ribs, not meeting his eyes.

He rubs in smooth, slow strokes, gentle enough that it only burns as much as it has to, but insistently insinuating the potion into his flesh. Carver can feel it working, the hot-cold melting heat, and he shudders, fingers twitching on the bed-covers. 

He tries so hard to keep still, but each push of the cloth makes him want to move, either into or out of the touch, and this is unlike anything anyone has ever done to him. Sure, his mother used to rub salves into his back when he was small and sick with a cough, but this is _different_. This is _intimate_. Fenris traces the lines of his bruises, careful and conscientious, and he keeps _doing_ it, and Carver thinks that, really, he could do this forever.

Except. Fenris drops the cloth, and his fingers slide against Carver's skin, feeling him out, and it _tickles_ and Carver can't _help_ it; he jerks, grabbing at Fenris' hand because he can't stand it any more.

The elf looks down at him, hair hanging in his eyes. “Roll over,” he says, and he sounds unsteady, unlike Fenris, really, who is always _always_ steady.

Carver blinks. “I..?”

“Your back,” Fenris says, and Carver remembers the burn. It itches between his shoulderblades. How could he have forgotten that?

The elf pulls away, slipping his hand free of Carver's and standing up, and Carver hesitates before turning over, bracing his forearms against the bed, which is too stupidly soft and he wants nothing more than to curl into it and go the hell to sleep.

Well, almost nothing.

It's worse, now, because he can only hear the glug of potion and feel the give of the mattress as Fenris climbs up onto it. There is a shift, and Carver can feel pressure on one and then the other side of his hips and, Maker's _heart_ , he knows Fenris is straddling him, a knee on either side, though that is all of him Carver _can_ feel.

Fenris hums deep in his throat and then there is a cool-hot-cold brush of healing potion across Carver's shoulders and, oh, it's perfect. The balm sinks into his flesh, soothing, and Carver is pretty sure he's the one who groans because, well, who else has any reason to?

He feels the damp cloth, the rasp of dry ends trailing across his skin, and he can hear Fenris breathing, sort of heavy, kind of ragged, with a hitch in his throat that makes Carver shiver. Eventually, Fenris stops, and leans down, planting his hand with that cloth wound around it just at the edge of Carver's vision.

“Today ... you were very strong.”

Carver inhales sharply; the room smells of healing potions and mustiness, and something more, that heady scent of elf he's pretty sure is coming up out of the bedclothes. 

“...thanks?”

“I thought ...” and Fenris makes a deep sound in his throat, low and dangerous. “I was glad to follow you,” he says at last, and Carver is almost completely sure that wasn't what he had been going to say.

“I,” he starts, but Carver doesn't know how to talk to someone who is almost but not quite sitting on his _back_. He tries. “I just ... did what I thought my brother would do.”

There is a noise that might be disgust, and Fenris presses his knee into Carver's side. “Your brother would not have ... he does not ...” and he shifts, moving sideways. 

Carver pushes himself up, and sees that Fenris has his back to him, sitting with his legs slung over the edge of the bed, holding the cloth tightly in both hands. Something has gone wrong, and Carver thinks that maybe, maybe he knows what to do. _Just reach out_ , he tells himself. _Just touch him_. He isn't clear on what would happen next, but there is a cold space on his chest where the bedclothes were, and a strange, echoing feeling in his lungs where something happened just now that he doesn't understand.

Fenris shakes himself, and leans further away, almost as if he can feel Carver thinking about touching him. “Your brother stands back and tells others where to go. How to move. What to do. Driving us like cattle. But you,” and he turns, then, looking back over his shoulder with a fierce brightness in his eyes. “You strike ahead, and drag us in your wake. I felt,” but he breaks off, pressing his mouth into a thin line, and making a face that makes no sense, so sad, so something.

Carver doesn't know what to do, but he knows he needs to do it. He tries to pull himself up, but his side aches like he's been tussling with a bloody _bull_ , and when he drags his legs up onto the bed he knocks his twisted ankle against a post and the pain is dizzying. He catches himself short of falling face first onto the bed-covers, and has to take a deep breath, and that hurts too.

“You need to rest.”

Carver shakes his head, and he knows his face is doing that thing where he's scowling, but he can't _help_ it. “You ... aren't you hurt? Can't I...?”

Fenris stands up, backing away. “I am fine.”

“You're _limping_.”

“I can take care of myself.”

It's like an insult; the elf can take care of himself, but Carver needs to be babied, of course, because he's so bleeding _useless_. If it was anyone else Carver would snarl at them, but it's _Fenris_ so he doesn't but he can't keep the hurt from his face or his voice. “Right. Sure. Fine.”

Fenris hesitates, hands hovering in front of him. “No. You do not ... I do not want ... I dislike it when I am ...” and he shakes his head, making a disgusted noise. “Please do not think this is because of you.” He takes a step away, into the dark. “If anyone, I ... but. I can't.”

None of that makes any sense. “I don't get it! Do you want me to ... but then ... what the _hell_ , Fenris!”

Fenris is just a shadow, now, a shadow and a faint glow where his damn tattoos catch the diffused light of the vanishing sun. “I will ... fetch some water,” he says quietly, and then he's gone.

Carver throws himself angrily onto his back, and immediately regrets it when the scratch of bedlinen reawakens the burn across his shoulders. “Maker's _arse_!” he curses, rolling onto his chest, regretting that too because, ow, even with all the potions on his skin he's still bruised like buggery and it _hurts_.

He lies there for a while, listening to his heartbeat, and thinking, _What the fuck, what the bleeding_ fuck _is going on?_

Fenris does not come back, or at least not before he falls asleep, and when he wakes he finds himself tucked deep under the covers, dawn lightening the sky through the crumbling roof, a cup of water sitting untouched on the floor next to the bed, and the mansion empty except for himself.


	12. Chapter 12

They avoid each other. Carver is pretty sure that's what's happening; he is not himself seeking the elf out, but he's aware of how easy it would be for Fenris to walk into any moment of his life and yet he _doesn't_. Cards with Varric at the Hanged Man, buying cheese with Merrill, routing slavers with Garrett, shopping for hats with Isabela -- Carver didn't know they were shopping for hats until Isabela had dragged him to _three_ milliners in a _row_ and before that he hadn't even known that milliner was a _word_.

No Fenris. No _elf_. There's Merrill, of course, but it isn't the same. She talks a lot, and he likes listening to her and watching the way she moves, but he can't understand half of what she says, and the other half just makes him nervous. She speaks loudly about magic in front of Templar recruits lounging outside the Blooming Rose. She makes a beeline for the magic stall in the courtyard of the Gallows, under the nose of the Templar lieutenant keeping a close watch on who buys what. She ignores customs wherever she goes, and while he admires and even adores her for it -- because she is So. Bloody. Adorable. -- he winces every time she asks a mercenary if he has so many scars because he isn't very good at it, or a Hightown noble whether they make their elf servants sleep in a kennel, or stops to tell a bewildered elven street urchin the history of the Dalish. She's wonderful and terrifying, and Carver envies her blissful innocence. The way she carries her staff as though it is, for Andraste's sake, a _staff_ and not a handy walking stick. The way she skips around steaming heaps of refuse as though they're piles of leaves in the forest. The way she stops, looks, wonders and _stares_ , turning back to him over and over for explanation.

“Why would anyone let themselves be whipped?” she asks, after meeting one of the Tranquil mages in the Gallows courtyard. 

The Tranquil (who have always creeped Carver out, partly because of things his father said and partly because they are just damn creepy) had been remarkably forthcoming on the subject of punishments she had received before being cut off from her magic. Merrill had asked question after question, and the eerily calm Tranquil answered them simply, no trace of emotion, as she explained how she had been caned and whipped and bound and eventually made Tranquil for trying to run away from the Gallows. She had gone into detail when questioned, horrific detail, and Carver had pulled Merrill away in part because he had felt queasy and in part because the Templars had started to take an interest in the dainty elf interrogating their tame mage.

“I wouldn't let anyone whip me,” Merrill says, leaning on the railing of the barge as they make their way back to Kirkwall proper. “I'd just make them all go to sleep, and then I'd go away somewhere they couldn't find me.”

“They take your blood,” Carver tells her. Father had told him this, had told them all this when they were small. “They make a, uh, phylactery out of it, and then they can find you, wherever you go.”

“Blood magic? But I thought they didn't like blood magic? I thought they were all about not liking blood magic.”

“It's not blood magic,” Carver says, but, really, it seems terribly like blood magic, and really, what else could you use blood _for_?

“It _sounds_ like blood magic,” Merrill argues, and then she's distracted by a seagull. “Oh _look_! It's got something in its mouth! Do you think it's fishguts?”

It's good, spending time with Merrill, but it's not enough. Carver finds himself missing the broody presence of the other elf, and he wanders up to Hightown by himself, just strolling about the markets and thinking, sometimes, about how easy it would be to go around a corner and a corner and open a door... but he doesn't. Things are awkward, now. He wouldn't know what to say, and _doing_ things is awkward in its own way.

He spends a week mooching about with the others, even invades Aveline's office a few times -- that never ends well, always turning into an argument about his own hotheadedness, and he's _not_ hotheaded, damnit, and he storms out, furious with her.

He's at home, if Gamlen's house can be called a home, sitting in the room he calls a bedroom in a lukewarm half-barrel of water his mother forced him into when she smelled his hair, scrubbing between his toes and definitely not sulking, when he hears a knock at the door, followed by voices.

“I am seeking Hawke.” That _voice_. He'd know it anywhere, but hearing it here is enough to make him drop the washcloth and perk up, listening hard.

“My son Garrett is out,” and that's his mother, sounding tired and wary.

“That is not the Hawke I meant,” says the first voice, and Carver is out of the bath now, dripping onto the floor and looking for his trousers. Maker, where _are_ they? He grabs the washcloth out of the water, covers as much of his important bits as he can with it, and yanks open the door to stick his head and shoulders out.

“I'm here!” he shouts, and, oh _shit_ , Fenris is in the front doorway looking surprised, but behind him are two faces Carver would rather not see peering around the doorframe.

“Carver?” says Merrill tentatively. “Why are you so wet?”

“Puppy! You're naked!” Isabela tries to push past Fenris into the house, but Fenris puts himself in front of her, frowning.

The door, Carver realises, isn't doing a very good job of hiding how undressed he is right now, and he yelps, trying to hold it ajar enough to talk around. “Give me a moment!” he yells, and slams the door shut, casting about for the towel he knows his mother left for him. It's on his bed, a rough piece of cloth that's mostly holes, and he drags it over himself as quickly as he can, looking for his clothes and doing his best to pull them on before anyone interrupts.

He has managed to climb into his smalls and an undershirt when there's a tentative knock at the door, followed by a push, and Fenris sticks his head in, eyes fixed on the floor. “Do you wish for assistance with your armour?”

It's been a _week_. Carver nods, clears his throat, and says, “Yeah. Uh, yeah, you can come in.”

Fenris does, not looking up, and stands in the corner, head turned toward Carver but keeping his eyes down. “Isabela was keen to help you dress, but your mother did not appear to think it wise.”

Carver pauses, half in and half out of his trousers, and gapes a little. Isabela is in the kitchen with his _mother_. Maker's _mercy_. He makes an effort to pull on his trousers, partly for modesty but _mostly_ to speed up the process of getting Isabela _out_ of Gamlen's kitchen and back into the street where she belongs.

He yanks his armour on clumsily, and jumps when a pair of slim hands appear at his side, working the buckles tight and flat against him. Fenris doesn’t look up, intent on his task, and Carver stands awkwardly while the elf helps him dress, his fingers sure and steady and dangerously spiky in those gauntlets.

“You’ve done _that_ before,” he says at last. 

Fenris’ expression twists. “I ... do not remember.”

That doesn’t make any sense, so Carver lets it go, shouldering his sword and tying his purse strings to his belt. “Where are we going?”

“The pirate has requested assistance in liberating a friend from the custody of mercenaries.”

The pirate. Who is in the kitchen with _his mother_. “Right. Let’s go.” He pushes open the door and-- whoa. Isabella and Merrill are both seated at the table, which has a tablecloth on it (well-mended but _clean_ ) and a teapot, and they are both holding little cups (mis-matched and chipped but with _saucers_ ) and there are napkins (folded to hide the holes) and a plate of tiny, tiny biscuits cut into stars.

Merrill is sitting very neatly, holding her cup with one finger out like a flag, and watching Carver’s mother warily out of the corner of her eye. She takes a dainty sip, looking up nervously. His mother nods. Merrill looks pleased with herself and wriggles a little.

Meanwhile, Isabela is sprawled defiantly in her chair, knees spread, elbows on the table. She catches Carver’s eye, smirks, and lifts her cup. “To present friends,” she says, and _shoots_ her drink, tossing it back like it’s rough whisky and not just boiled bark. “Mmmm, good stuff. Another!”

“Another _please_ ,” Merrill whispers nervously. “You have to say please or it’s rude.”

Isabela grins, and winks at Carver. “Please?”

He hustles them out into the street despite Merrill’s protests that they only just arrived. Isabela gooses him as she brushes by. “Next time you have a bath, sweet thing, you should invite me. I’ll scrub your front, if you’ll scrub mine.”

“Back,” Merrill says helpfully. “You mean you’ll scrub his _back_ , don’t you Isabela?”

Isabela pets Merrill’s hair. “That too, kitten.”

Her ‘friend’ turns out to be a hard-faced woman with short-cropped blond hair and some interesting tattoos, and she’s tied to a chair in a warehouse down the docks when they find her, surrounded by mercenaries.

The mercenaries explain that she owes their patron a hefty sum of money; gambling debts, they say.

“Is that true, Noelle?” The woman shrugs, frowning, and Isabela rolls her eyes. “Oh, I _see_. If I cover her losses, will you let her go?”

Carver can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. Isabela has pulled out a purse and is handing it to the mercenary captain, who hefts it thoughtfully and peers inside. “We _could_ let her go. Or we could take the money and kill all of you.”

Isabela grins, stepping back -- “I hoped you were going to say something like that.” -- and kicks a flask in his face that explodes in a plume of smoke.

 _Oh, shit_. 

Carver never likes fighting mercenaries. He _was_ a mercenary. He knows what it’s like not to know why or who or how but just to be told that you will fight, and then to fight and not ask questions. So he doesn’t feel entirely _good_ about slicing them up, but he’s not going to hold back. They’re attacking _him_ after all.

These mercenaries are surprisingly weak, apart from the Captain. Fenris squares off against him while Carver and Isabela take care of the others, and Carver tries to keep himself between the mercenaries and Merrill, who flings rocks and lightning like rose petals, her face a mask of grave concentration. One, two, three down, and Carver has fallen into a rhythm, stepping through the motions with familiarity and confidence. He knows this. This isn’t hard. He doesn’t have to think, just _act_. Or react, when an arrow out of nowhere nearly takes off his ear. He staggers sideways, and gears up to charge the archer down, this being a generally useful tactic against archers, but a great lump of stone skims past him and knocks the woman off her feet. He glances back over his shoulder, and Merrill beams at him.

Nice.

It's over quickly, and Isabela gives her friend a lecture as she goes efficiently through the pockets of the dead. “I thought we agreed that you weren't going to gamble with money you didn't have any more.”

“Untie me and I'll explain everything.” The woman has an Orlesian accent, and Isabela has left her tied to the chair.

“I think I know everything,” Isabela says wryly. “You gambled, you lost, you gambled some more to make up for it, and then you skipped town without paying your debts. Am I close, petal?”

“It was more complicated than that.” The Orlesian woman sighs, tugging against her ropes. “I'll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Oh, I _know_.” Isabela presses a handful of cheap jewellery into Carver's hand, winks at him, and sways over to her bound friend. She straddles Noelle's lap, looping her arms around the other woman's neck. “Boys, why don't you take Merrill shopping? I'll catch up.”

“Bela... you're not going to untie me, are you?” The woman sounds wary, but not entirely unhappy.

Isabela laughs throatily. “Not _just_ yet. First, we're going to play a _game_.”

And that's their cue. “Right! Let's go.” Carver shoos Merrill back out into the street, though she makes it difficult.

“But I _like_ games! Can't _we_ play a game?”

Carver takes a deep breath. “Not _that_ game.”

“Whyever not?”

The vision of himself tied to a chair while Merrill climbed on top of him nearly breaks his brain. “We just … can't.”

Fenris makes a low, soft noise. Carver glances at him and Fenris, head turned away as though he is examining his gauntlet, is _shaking_ , shoulders shuddering as he pretends to ignore them. He's _laughing_. Argh.

“All right, Fenris?”

Fenris clears his throat and looks up, his face a mask of innocence. That is in itself disturbing. “I am _fine_.”

Yeah. Right. “Merrill. Don't you need some, um, cheese, or something?”

“No. We bought lots of cheese. Remember? You said the cheese was bigger than my head. Which I thought was unfair, because my head's quite small, much smaller than your head.”

Carver _had_ said that. “Hats, then? Girls like hats.”

“I don't think they make hats for elves. They'd be much too big for my tiny head.”

Carver opens his mouth to beg Merrill to come away from here before they hear anything he really won't be able to get out of his mind when he tries to go to sleep at night, when Fenris clears his throat. “I would like to buy some soap.”

Merrill claps her hands together. “Oh! Yes, I'd like some soap. I think I could do with a bath. I don't _have_ a bath, but... well, I could come over and use your bath, couldn't I? Or would that be too much trouble?” She looks up at Carver and smiles tentatively. 

Merrill in his bath. Carver squeezes his eyes shut, but it doesn't help. The Maker hates him.

“Soap,” he says, opening his eyes, and wow, his two favourite elves are both here, both blinking their huge, glistening eyes and looking at _him_. He clears his throat. “Let's go buy some soap.”

They find a soap and candle vendor in Hightown, who seems at first unhappy about serving elves, but either Fenris' scowl or the unsubtle way that Carver knocks one fist against the other changes the man's mind. Carver, who has no real interest in soap, watches the elves pick out a few things, Merrill arguing with herself about the merits of some herb he's never heard of over another herb he's never heard of. Fenris, meanwhile, is buying... sand?

“If you wanted sand, we could have got some at the beach,” Carver says, because Carver is very funny, and he knows it, grinning at his own wit.

Fenris looks at him sidelong. “This is not just _sand_ ,” he says, as if it's obvious. “I have seen your bath. You would _not_ understand.”

“What?” Oh, yeah, Fenris saw his bath. “What don't I understand about _sand_? I thought the point of baths was to get all the, you know, sand and dirt _off_ you.”

Fenris blinks rapidly. “Dirt,” he says, contemplatively, and nods. “Yes.” 

He starts a conversation with the vendor which ends in him purchasing a bag of sand, some kind of oily salt and what looks to Carver like-- 

“Did you buy a jar of mud? Why would anyone pay money for a jar of mud?”

Fenris shakes his head, arranging his purchases. “You have no idea. Here,” and he hands Carver a small packet.

“Is this mud? Do you need me to carry mud for you? Because I can get you buckets of fresh Lowtown mud right now, if you like.”

“Not mud. Soap.” Fenris frowns, but it's not precisely a cross frown. “Better than the soap you use now.”

They wander down to the Hanged Man, where Sebastian and Aveline and Anders are telling Varric about something amazing Garrett did today, and Fenris, who doesn't like crowds, tries to leave, but Varric talks him around somehow, with his silver bloody tongue. There's drinks and cards, and Sebastian and Fenris have a quiet little discussion in which the word 'Andraste' comes up a lot. Carver watches them and isn't jealous. He doesn't have anything to be jealous about.

He walks Merrill home later, checks her cupboards for her, and makes his way to Gamlen's. There, he pats Duchess, shuts her in the kitchen, unwraps the packet of soap, and yeah, Fenris is right, this is _nothing_ like the soap his mother buys. He drives his thumbnail into it and it dents, smooth and soft, filling his nose with sweet, clean fruitiness. Apples.

Bethany, he thinks, would have loved it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interlude, of sorts.

Garrett is out and Carver can't sleep. The room stinks of wet dog, Duchess having got herself thoroughly soaked in something nasty and needing to be washed, and _why_ it had to be in the room Carver sleeps in is beyond him, but his mother had frowned and pointed and Carver can't bear the weight of his mother's displeasure any more than he can cast fireballs. So, with Garrett conveniently needing to be out, he had washed the dog, mopped up the floor as best he could, and told his mother that he was going to bed.

She'd rested the back of her hand against his forehead, checking his temperature like he was _five_ and made a face. “You aren't ill. Why don't you go out?”

Only a year earlier she had done everything she could to keep him _in_ of an evening, and the change of attitude took him by surprise. “I'm tired,” he'd told her, and it was sort of true, but not very. He just hadn't felt like company just then.

Now? Maybe staying home had been a bad idea. The bedlinen is heavy and irritating, and the straw mattress pokes him mercilessly, which is why he usually sleeps in a shirt. He's wearing one now, and it chafes him as he rolls onto his back, trying to get comfortable.

It's no use. He stares up at the dark, one arm tucked under his head, one hand flat on his belly. There's muscle there now he didn't have a year ago, hard muscle he can feel under his skin. He traces the lines of it, slipping his hand under his shirt, and it's always struck him as odd that while someone else's touch on his torso is almost guaranteed to tickle, his own just feels pleasantly shivery.

Like, when Fenris was rubbing potion into his side. He remembers how the brush of those fingers on his skin made him shudder, and slides his hand up to where the bruise had been, healed now, completely gone. Fenris touched him like _this_ , and it had tickled, though in a good way, but now it just feels nice. He runs his hand over the place-that-used-to-be-a-bruise, from just below the armpit down his ribs to the hip, and traces his fingers along the waist of his smallclothes. Fenris was _on_ him, practically, bent over him, straddling his hips from behind, and Carver tries to imagine what that would have looked like to anyone watching. He shivers. _Maker_. It would have been so easy for Fenris to lean down and--

Actually, he isn't sure what. To sink, maybe, onto his back, letting his weight settle slowly. Or to arch down and breathe on the back of Carver's neck, maybe kiss him there, or at least press his mouth there, or maybe even his tongue.

Carver draws a ragged breath, toying with the cloth of his smalls, and runs his knuckles down the side of his cock. Well, yes. Now he's getting hard. Thinking about _Fenris_. What's wrong with him?

It's not that he doesn't like men. There's something about lean muscle and _strength_ that he admires in a woman or a man, and really, if a strong woman came along (like Isabela?) and wanted to ride him into a mattress, he'd really _really_ like it. It's just that he doesn't know what to _do_ with a man. Not that he has much idea about what to do with women. You just get hard, rub up against them, things take their course, right? He knows that. He's _done_ that. But with a man?

The idea is exciting. A man. With all the same parts, only someone _else's_ parts, and what would he like, if he was the other man? Probably the same sort of thing. Probably.

He closes his eyes. Fenris. What would Fenris like? He's strong, and self-assured, and Carver can't imagine what he would want, or what he would be like. Naked, well, he knows what Fenris looks like _naked_. All that tan skin and pale ink. So long and lean and _lithe_. His hands, broad and strong-fingered, and Carver covers himself with his palm, thinking about how far Fenris' hand might span across his crotch, about how Fenris' fingers might wrap and tug and what that would feel like.

Fuck it. He pulls down his smalls and flattens his hand against his cock. Maker, he's hard now. And he knows how to do this efficiently, but this time he thinks about how _Fenris_ might do it. How would this happen? How would they fit together? What would they _do_?

Maybe it would be Fenris behind him, reaching over his hip to curl his fingers around Carver's cock, just holding him for a moment while they both caught their breath. Fenris, mouth against Carver's shoulder, his tongue flickering against the skin, breath hot and fast and _needy_. He would start to move his hand in long, slow strokes, and Carver would have to press his fist into his mouth to stop the want from spilling out of his throat; Carver does this, knuckles against his tongue, and in his mind Fenris has mouthed his way up to Carver's ear, and is whispering to him about how much he needs this, how much they both do, and how good it feels. He imagines his hand is not his, imagines long fingers and hard calluses that are not his own sliding against him, imagines a low rumble of words in his ear that tell him how wanted he is, how needed, how special.

Which is, of course, the moment when the door starts to open, and Carver rolls over onto his front, tearing his hands away from himself to flatten both of them on the straw-filled sack that is his mattress, red-faced and obvious. “What?!”

His mother looks in. “Are you all right, darling?”

Maker, fucking _Maker_! “I'm fine! I told you!”

“I just thought,” and she pushes the door open, letting the light in which makes him duck his head, knowing how conspicuous he looks, and ashamed of himself because, urgh, this is so awkward. “I made you some tea, to help you sleep.”

“Mo _ther!_ ”

“What?” She blinks at him, frowns, and comes in to set the cup down on the floor. “Can't a mother look after her son?”

Carver tugs his pillow up against his chin. “I'm all right, you don't have to baby me,” and he's glad the blankets hide him so well.

“Oh, darling.” For a horrible moment he thinks she's going to touch him, maybe smooth his hair off his brow or, worse, kiss him goodnight. She doesn't, shaking her head instead. “Drink that up before it gets cold. It _will_ help, I promise.”

He mutters something which she must take for thanks, because she goes, pulling the door closed behind her.

Urgh. This is exactly why he doesn't _do_ this. And, bloody hell, he can't do it now, the moment is gone along with his flagging erection, pressed into the prickly straw, and this is just bleeding _perfect_.

Maybe this is the Maker is telling him not to think such shameful things about people he knows. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe _he's_ wrong. He pulls the blanket over his head and wishes he _had_ gone out tonight, instead of staying home for all this frustrated humiliation.

He doesn't drink the tea, and when his brother finally does come home, stupidly excited about something Carver doesn't give a shit about and resents being woken up for, Garrett accidentally kicks the cup over, cold tea spilling uselessly on the floor.


	14. Chapter 14

_Merrill is a blood mage and everything is wrong._

It feels like a personal insult, that blood magic could take someone so sweet, so lovely, and ruin her. Carver doesn’t even try to keep the horror off his face, and Merrill flinches when she looks at him. Flinches! As if _he’s_ the one making pacts with demons and binding people with blood!

_Merrill is a blood mage and she makes him feel like a monster._

He says nothing, but he can feel his heart cracking, like a lump of quartz struck with a mallet, pieces flaking away and lost. He’s being melodramatic, but sometimes melodrama is the only way to express the enormity of his feelings, and just because he doesn’t _talk_ about his feelings (except when he’s angry) doesn’t mean he doesn’t _feel_ them.

_Merrill is a blood mage and his brother already knew._

Garrett asks him if he’s all right, and then wipes some blood off Carver’s face with his thumb. Carver lets him, just stares at the hunch of Merrill’s shoulders, remembering the casual way she slit open her palm and then ... did what she did to that man. Garrett shoves him gently, asking again if he’s okay, and then grabbing his shoulder and shaking him a little. “Carver! Snap out of it!”

_Merrill is a blood mage and if he loved her he wouldn’t care._

Everything smells of blood, and Carver makes it nearly all the way home before he licks the corner of his mouth where it’s sticky and all he can _taste_ is blood, and it’s not his, and he throws up in the gutter.

“Maker’s balls, Carver,” and his brother is rubbing his back. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You never tell me anything,” Carver gasps. He rinses his mouth out with water from a canteen and spits it in the street. “Maybe if you told me things then I could deal with them and not get blindsided every _bleeding_ time.”

“What, exactly, haven’t I told you?” Garrett asks, and he sounds exasperated.

“You didn’t tell me about _that_ ,” Carver spits. “Or that ... about _Justice_. Or that Sebastian’s a prince. Or that Aveline told them to reject me for the guard. Or that you’re fucking that _bloody_ mage, and, bleeding hell, Garrett, what in the Maker’s name are you _thinking_?!” He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his fingers to his face, pushing against his eyelids until he sees spots.

Garrett is quiet, hand still on Carver’s shoulder. Then he takes it away. “I’m not fucking ‘that mage’,” he says flatly.

Carver lowers his hand, peering over it at his brother who looks incredibly pissed off. “Oh.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know if I start fucking ‘that mage’,” Garrett says, and yes, this is his cold rage, which Carver knows all too well. This is his father, hard and furious and disappointed. “Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

“Brother,” Carver starts, but Garrett cuts him off.

“Do you have any idea how sick I am of your constant whining? Wanting to go back to Ferelden, wanting Bethany, wanting to be a guard, wanting me to take you everywhere and arguing with me when I do? And now you want me to tell you _everything_? All my private _thoughts_?”

“That’s not even--!”

“And every time you complain about being treated like a child it’s because I’m treating you like an _adult_. I shouldn't have to spoon-feed you information about our friends. You can work things out for yourself. And try thinking about Anders and Merrill, and what things have been like for _them_. Not everything’s black and white, Carver. Your mage-hating elf isn’t _perfect_ and he isn’t _right_ about everything.”

Garrett shakes his head, looking disgusted. He looks so much like their father that it makes Carver feel sick again.

“I keep expecting more of you. Maybe I’m expecting too much.”

Carver shoves him, hard. “Fuck. You.”

Garrett glares, straightens up, and holds out one hand. “Don't push me, little brother,” he breathes, tiny flickers of fire leaping from fingertip to fingertip. 

It's a warning. Carver hates him for it.

“We'll talk about this,” Garrett says, and turns to walk away. Carver wants to scream at him, wants to barrel into him and knock him down, but the threat of fiery death is enough to give him pause. Garrett wouldn't _kill_ him, he's pretty sure. He probably wouldn't _maim_ him. But fire _hurts_ , and Carver doesn't think his brother is above burning him, letting him hurt, and then hauling him off to the abomination to be healed back into some semblance of himself.

Garrett has gone off in the direction of home, and Carver doesn't follow him. He doesn't know where to go, so he roams about, rising through the warren of streets and sinking back down, daring anyone to start with him, to pick a fight _now_ , because he is bleeding _ready_ for it.

Outside the Hanged Man someone makes a crack about Ferelden scum and Carver snaps. He gets punched in the face for his trouble, but he knocks one man right out and has another groaning in the dirt by the time an amused feminine voice asks if he needs a hand.

He looks around; the remaining Free Marchers who have a problem with Ferelden refugees back away. “No thanks,” he says, easing up and eyeing Isabela. “Got it under control.”

“How about a drink, then?” She cocks her hips at him, leaning against the doorframe of the tavern as if she owns the place.

A drink sounds perfect.

One drink becomes several, and Isabela rests against his arm to top up his mug while Varric tells seemingly endless stories about heroes and pirate wenches and rampant swashbuckling. It all sounds impossible and fantastic, and Carver says out loud that he wishes he could be a swashbuckling pirate and that he'd buckle all the swashes.

“Oh, you could, sweet thing.” Isabela strokes his cheek. “I could make _such_ a pirate out of you.”

He's drunk enough to try and catch her hand to kiss it, but not so drunk that he doesn't go red when she yanks him up by the collar and announces that she's going to her room and if anyone wants her to tell them to sod off.

They don't make it all the way down the hall before they're tangled in a kiss, and it's all tongues and mouths and hands in places Carver has never had hands go so publicly. Isabela shoves him up against a wall, laughing low in her throat, and starts unbuckling his armour. 

“Get a room!” someone shouts.

“Got one, thanks!” Isabela calls back, before pulling Carver down into a fierce kiss that leaves his head spinning, though that could be the ale. Her hands are in his shirt and he is vaguely aware that they're in danger of doing this _in the hall_ , but Isabela makes a purring sound and drags him through a doorway, slamming the door shut and pushing him up against it.

This is … oh. “Isabela?”

“Mmmm?” She's drawn one of her knives now and is running it under the laces of his shirt -- is she going to cut them? Yes. _Yes_ , she is going to cut them. She _has_ cut them. Shit.

“Isabela!”

She pauses long enough to look up at him, her eyes smoky as she plays the knife down the opening of his shirt, tip grazing his skin. “What's wrong, sweet thing?”

“This … isn't your room.”

She glances over her shoulder at the very surprised couple sitting at the table, and laughs, throwing back her head, and she is _glorious_ , even as she calls, “Sorry!” over her shoulder, yanks the door open and hauls him down the hall to the next room, which is at least unoccupied, and shoves him toward the bed. “Whoops,” she says, holding the knife like another woman might hold a pair of scissors or a ladle, and she grins. “Well, I guess that spiced up _their_ evening.”

Carver doesn't know what to say. This is going to happen. He has wanted this and not wanted it, but now? He wants it. He wants it so much it _burns_ , and when Isabella puts the knife aside he reaches for her, pulling her up against his chest, and her arms go around him, hands tugging his shirt out of his trousers and sliding against the skin of his back.

Her mouth is sour breath and ale, and it's wonderful. She has never seemed so small as she does in his arms, nor so soft, and he breathes her in, kissing her over and over until she has somehow sunk him onto the bed with its cheap, itchy blankets and stale mattress, and with her on top of him he doesn't care about that at all.

She skins his clothes from him, shucking her own in the process, and her skin is brown all over, freckled where it sees the sun, across her bosom and collarbone, down her arms and legs, but not her shoulders or her soft, round belly. He tries to press his mouth to all the places she has freckles and all the places she does not, and she laughs, hands wound in his hair. “Oh, you sweet, sweet darling.” Her voice is husky now, low and dark, and in the afternoon sunlight she _glows_ , rich and warm and delicious. 

Then-- “Is that a _tattoo_ , puppy?” She slides her fingers over the ink, making his skin tense and shiver.

“Some of us got them before Ostagar,” he says by way of explanation. “It's a Mabari. For strength.” He hesitates, because Isabela is too damn beautiful and has seen _everything_ , and he doesn't want her to stop touching him. “I … can make it bark.”

She laughs. “Oh, I'll _bet_. But can you make it wag?”

He grins, relieved. “I can _try_.” This is going to be all right.

And it is. It's good, really, better than good, because Isabela is incredible. She's better than a whore, or maybe like some kind of fancy whore he could never afford, but even better because _this_ is something they _both_ want, something to share, and while there are awkward moments, nothing makes him feel uncomfortable or foolish or unwanted. 

When she's finished with him, and he is _well_ finished himself, she sits up, locking her hands behind her head and stretching. “Mmmm, that wasn't _bad_.”

That's not discouraging, but it isn't too encouraging either. Carver tries to catch his breath, watches her stretch, listens to her murmur to herself, and tries to think of something to say.

“Are we ... going to do this again?”

She smiles, ruffles his hair. “Who knows? But I think we’ve had our fun, puppy. And it was,” she adds, skating her fingers over his cheek. “Fun, I mean. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I hope you enjoyed me too,” and she winks.

He did, but it’s a little saddening to think that this is it, that they won’t be making a habit of it. He rolls up onto his side and watches her scrub at her damp skin with a cloth. She’s completely unselfconscious; he, meanwhile, has the blanket tucked around his hips like armour.

She twists to look to him over her shoulder, through the triangle made by her raised arm, fingers threaded in her hair, skin so brown and kissed with freckles. “And, of course, I _know_ I’m not the one you _really_ want.”

He sucks in a breath, blushing now, and yeah, she can see it, he isn’t fooling anyone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mutters.

“Oh?” She leans over him, her breasts hanging heavy against his shoulder. “Elf, about my height, puts his glowy fist through the chests of his enemies?” She grins, hair brushing his cheek. She smells of sweat and dirty blankets and the sea. “You know, you could invite him up to join us if you liked. I’d _love_ to be between your rock and his hard place.”

And there’s an image he’ll never get out of his mind. “I’m not ... doing that.”

“No.” She sounds sad. “It looks rather like you aren’t doing _anything_.” She pushes herself up, perching on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs and watching him with her head cocked to one side. “What’s _wrong_ with you Hawkes and pursuing the objects of your affection? You just stand there, wanting, and not _doing_ anything about it.” She shakes her head. “Lovers are like fish, puppy. If you leave them on the line too long before reeling them in, they jump the hook and you lose them. Do you really want broodypants to be ‘the one who got away’?”

Carver takes a deep breath and lets it go. “I never said I wanted him at all,” he grumbles, looking at her thigh because he can’t meet her eyes.

“And you didn’t deny it, either. Don’t worry. It’s all right.” She pats him on the hip and gets up, crossing the room to pour a cup of water from the jug, splashing a little on her face and hands and drinking the rest.

She’s still naked, damp and glistening in the last of the day's light, and for a moment he’s overtaken by a sudden feeling of loss, a sadness that she won’t turn to him, smile, cross the room and slide back into his arms, kiss him until they’re both breathless and ready, and that he won’t wake up next to her tomorrow.

But, she’s Isabela, and if she says this is the end of it then there’s no point in trying to argue otherwise. She’s probably already set her sights on someone else. At least she was nice about it.

“I’m surprised, though,” she’s saying. “I was sure you two were going to sort it out when he took you off to tend your manly wounds.” Someone so naked shouldn’t be able to grin so saucily. She leans up against the wash-stand, arms folded beneath her breasts, her belly and thighs shining with sweat. Maker’s breath, she’s beautiful. “Two fierce warriors with enormous swords, bandaging each other up and soothing each other’s hurts. ‘Why, just let me remove your shirt for you, serrah.’ ‘Will you rub this with salve?’ ‘Oh, yes, messere, a little lower.’ It writes itself, really. How could you cock that up?”

Carver looks down at his hands, laced together on the rumpled bedding. “I don’t know. There’s ... there’s something... I can’t ... I don’t ... he’s just,” and he makes a disgusted sound because grown men should be able to speak their minds without stumbling every few words. _Stop, Carver. Think. Put it together and say what you mean._ “There’s something wrong with Fenris,” he says. “I don’t know what it is, but he’s all ... prickly. It’s like he wants ... something, but doesn’t want ... something. And I don’t know what it is.” There. That was better. Sort of.

Isabela nods. “Well. Yes. He was a _slave_ , after all.”

“So?”

“So,” and she shrugs, frowning a little. “There’s a good chance he’s been mistreated.”

Carver pushes himself up on one elbow. “How do you mean?”

She’s quiet for a moment, her expression serious for once, and she’s still beautiful, but there is something hard in her features now that he has never seen before. “What do you think I mean when I say ‘mistreated’?”

“Beaten?”

“Almost certainly. But, beyond that.”

He thinks. “Uh ... bad food, poor housing, not enough sleep,” which largely describes his own life since coming to Kirkwall, so he thinks harder. “Being told what to do, all the time. I don’t know. Being kept indoors. Going to the privy in a bucket. Rats.”

“That’s prison, sweet thing,” she says, smirking a little. “Slavery is all that, but there’s more. Think of it like this. If it wasn’t Fenris, if it was your sister, what would you be afraid might happen to her? Come on, puppy, you were in the army. What do you _think_?”

She's naked and talking about his dead sister. That’s just wrong. But the comparison has merit because the thing he would _most_ fear for his sister is-- “Oh. Oh! But. Fenris is--” _a man?_ “--really strong. He can take care of himself.”

Isabela shakes her head. “It doesn’t have to be one overpowering another with strength. It can be overpowering with _power_. With magic. With ownership.” Her frown deepens. “Just because no-one beats you or holds you down doesn’t make it _pleasant_. So. I expect our lovely friend has some unlovely moments in his past that make things ... tricky. Or not. Maybe he was lucky.” Her tone suggests that this is unlikely and thinking about it, thinking about _that_ and _Fenris_ , makes Carver angry, makes his fists and his teeth clench, and he’d like to hit something but there’s nothing to hit that might make things better.

“How ... what then?” _What do I do, when I can’t hit someone?_

“Let him take control.” Isabela smiles, and it’s a little naughty, that smile, but not quite her usual out-and-out smirk. “I’m not saying you need to be _gentle_ , necessarily, because it’s Fenris, he’s not a kitten. But he might not take kindly to a big burly man throwing him up against a wall.”

Another image Carver won’t be able to get out of his mind. “So, what? You want me to let _him_ throw _me_ up against a wall?” His face is going red, he can _feel_ it, and Isabela chuckles, crossing the room to kneel on the side of the bed.

“You really haven’t done this before, have you?” But her voice is kind, and only a little teasing. She strokes his thigh through the blanket. “Then there’s some things you really ought to know.”

She starts to explain, and as she goes into detail Carver starts to panic. “I can’t _do_ that,” he protests, fisting his hands in the blanket, but she runs a hand up his arm, soothingly, and tells him how to be careful, to take things slowly, and the important things, like the bottle of oil she unstoppers for him, smearing some on his fingers. It smells faintly of spearmint.

“You can keep that,” she says, eyes twinkling. “I get mine from Sparklefingers, but I can’t see you swaggering into the clinic and brazenly asking for it. Though I’d _love_ to see his face if you did.”

“What’s it for?”

She tells him, and then, grinning wickedly, she shows him.

Her fingers are long and strong and sure, and it's … different. Not unpleasant, once he gets over how strange it is to be touched _there_ and manages to relax. And then she does something that feels unlike anything he's ever felt, and he makes a sound he's pretty sure he's never made before, and she grins like a maniac, withdrawing her fingers and growling, pushing him back on the bed and straddling him. “I was wrong,” she breathes, and bruises his mouth with a kiss. “I don't think we _have_ had all our fun.”

It's sundown by the time she declares herself done, and he kisses her in the dusk, hands carding through her hair and down her neck to hold her jaw and just, well, hold her. 

“Thanks,” she says, eyes invisible in the shadows of the dingy room.

“For what?”

She huffs out a breath. “For letting me help.” She chuckles, a low, throaty sound, and presses a kiss to his temple. “Friends don't let friends have terrible sex. Remember this, when I need a favour from you.”

It sounds a little ominous, but he promises, and, really, it's not as though he could forget if he tried.

Varric is still writing in his rooms when Carver emerges, feeling wild and shaken. Isabela has gone out, Varric says, and Carver can't fault her for that. He sits, wriggles a little, and pours off a mug of ale.

“Don't give me any of the details, Junior,” Varric says dryly. “I could hear a lot of it through the walls.”

Carver laughs, embarrassed, swiping a hand over his eyes. “Maker.” He should be annoyed about that, he thinks, but he can't be annoyed when he's so pleasantly exhausted.

“Maker indeed.” Varric pauses, sips his drink, and eyes Carver thoughtfully. “So, Ser Sullen has turned to piracy. Would you like to hear?”

Carver nods, and listens as Varric reads his pages aloud. Eventually, as the night deepens, they're joined by Anders, and Sebastian, and then Aveline, who gives Carver one look and harrumphs at him disapprovingly. It isn't until Garrett shows up, bruised and cranky and inclined to be cruel, that Carver is informed that he has a bright red mark on his neck that gives him thoroughly away.

Varric deflects the attention. Isabela returns with her hands full of coins that she, “Took fairly and squarely from a con man down the docks,” and Carver, with a mug of ale, a handful of cards, and a woman winking at him over the table, feels content, for the first time in what feels like forever.


	15. Chapter 15

Everyone knowing is awkward. Isabela makes no secret of it, but her teasing is different now. When the mage says something about men with big swords having something to make up for, Isabela laughs throatily, and says, “Well, _that's_ not always true. Right, puppy?” and elbows Carver in the ribs. The mage makes a disgusted noise, but Carver catches him looking, later, a thoughtful expression on his face that makes the back of Carver's neck go all hot.

It doesn't end there. “Such stamina,” she teases, standing back and letting Carver hack a lizardy thing into bits. “A girl's hard-pressed to keep up. But then, I did always enjoy being pressed hard.”

Carver doesn't know how to respond. “I've seen you enjoy being pressed,” he says clumsily, hands covered in gore, and she grins.

“I seem to recall _I_ was the one doing most of the _pressing_ , puppy.”

Garrett's face is priceless. 

Carver tries not to make eye contact with his brother but can see how tightly he grips his staff, can hear the tension in his voice as he barks orders at everyone, and when he tries to negotiate he doesn't bother to be charming and is instead aggressively intimidating. He doesn't look at Carver unless he has to. This isn't unusual, but it feels different this time, as if Garrett is actually furious instead of just careless and self-centred.

Varric says nothing out of the ordinary, but Carver notices that there are a lot of references to 'mighty Fereldan blades' and 'youthful passion' and 'walnuts' in his stories these days. He has no idea about the walnuts, but the rest of it seems a little... something. Meanwhile, Ser Sullen has sprouted a tattoo.

“When did he get that?” Carver wants to know. “You've never mentioned that before.”

“It was never relevant before, Junior.” Varric, who _never_ looks innocent, looks suspiciously innocent.

“I don't remember his two-hander being so big, either.”

Varric chuckles. “I've added some adjectives. For verisimilitude.”

 _That's_ not a real word. 

Aveline just glares at him, and calls Isabela a whore, which Carver thinks is unfair and inaccurate, and he points this out. “Don't whores get paid?”

“What an excellent point. Puppy, you owe me money.” Isabela winks at him.

“As would half of Thedas,” Aveline says tightly, which is again unfair and inaccurate.

“Oh, only about a _third_ ,” Isabela says, stretching. The fact that he's seen her do that without clothes on makes it really distracting. “But I'm working on it.”

And then there's Merrill. Carver hasn't spoken to her since the day he found out. It's awful. When he sees her he tries not to look, just hangs back behind everyone and stares at things in the distance or at the back of Fenris' head. Actually, he spends a lot of time staring at the back of Fenris' head anyway, because he's pretty sure Fenris knows about Isabela but he hasn't _said_ anything.

It's not something Carver feels comfortable bringing up, either. _Hullo, Fenris. I had sex with Isabela. Twice. It was great. Also, I want to touch your hair. Please don't punch a hole in my chest._ Yeah. No.

It is, oddly, Isabela who fixes the Merrill situation. “You're making her unhappy,” she says, plonking a mug of piss-flavoured beer in front of him. “Stop it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he says, though he does.

“Yes, you do.” Isabela frowns and fishes something out of her drink. “She's unhappy because you two were becoming such good friends and now you're treating her like she's eaten a baby.”

“You don't understand,” Carver argues, only how is he supposed to explain? “My father told me that blood magic was the worst thing a mage could do. He made Garrett and Bethany _promise_. And he made _me_ promise not to ever let them do it.”

Bethany had also made him promise, later, in a tent made of blankets, to stop her if she ever tried. He can remember the way their fingers locked together, and how he swore he'd never let it happen, and how she'd sighed, relieved, because together they could face anything.

Not long after, he'd made friends with that cowherder's son -- shit, what was his _name?_ \-- and for two glorious months the two of them had run crazy in the Fereldan countryside, climbing trees and falling down hills and getting covered in mud and prickles and scratches. Bethany had fallen down less hills and managed to avoid most of the prickles and scratches, and she hadn't liked the cowherder's son as much as Carver had. But she was there when the boy told them his father was moving on, and Carver, who knew what that was like, had nodded, miserable, and tried not to look like he cared as much as he did.

The boy had taken out a knife. “We should be blood-brothers,” he said, and why could Carver remember all his freckles and the way his nose turned up at the end but couldn't remember his damn _name?_

Carver hadn't known what he meant and the boy had explained and Bethany had gone pale, whispering the words, “Blood magic!” in Carver's ear.

It probably hadn't been blood magic, Carver thinks now. But at that age the idea had been terrifying, and he'd run all the way home with his heart hammering fit to burst. He can't remember what he said. Something awful, probably. It hadn't mattered all that much then, because he thought he'd always have Bethany and with her nothing else _could_ matter. It bothers him now.

“And you can keep that promise,” Isabela says, holding up her mug. “You never promised your father anything about Merrill.”

“That's not the point.”

“No. The point is that she's your _friend_. And she's unhappy. And if you keep on making her unhappy, I will make _you_ oh so _very_ unhappy.” She isn't joking, he can tell.

“What do you want me to do?”

Isabela shrugs. “Just say hello. How hard can that be?”

It feels, actually, ridiculously hard, but Carver tries anyway. He finds Varric teaching Merrill a game with cards, which involves a lot of cheating, and Merrill doesn't seem to grasp the idea.

“But I don't _have_ a three,” she says plaintively. “Why would I tell you I have a three?”

“Because that's how you play, Daisy,” Varric says patiently.

Carver takes a deep breath, pulling out a chair. “Deal me in?”

Merrill jumps and looks down at her hands. She has so many scars, and there's a part of Carver that wants to just kiss them, and another part that wants to shake her until she comes to her senses. It's confusing. 

Varric gives him a level look and starts gathering up the cards to shuffle them together.

“So, how do you play?”

The explanation is pretty simple; someone with an ace places it face up, and then the idea is to play cards going up in rank, but face down so no-one can see if they're really the cards you say they are. Anyone can cheat and anyone can call someone's bluff, and Carver has never been very good at this game but Merrill is just _terrible_. Every time she cheats, she glances at the dwarf as though asking if that's right, and Carver wants to let it go, but he can't help calling her bluff. Varric frowns at him and shakes his head, but when Merrill drops her cards on the table and they both see the lot of them, Carver can't help sighing.

“Ooops! Sorry.” She picks up her cards, and smiles tentatively. “Is it my turn? Why are you both looking at me?”

Varric smiles. “You're doing fine. Play your seven.”

“Is it seven?” Merril peers at her cards. Carver knows she doesn't have a seven, but even if he hadn't, the tentative way she puts down a card and looks shiftily at them both would have given her away. “Se-even,” she says, glancing at Varric who gives her an encouraging look and flashes Carver a warning one.

Carver plays a four. “Eight.” Varric calls his bluff, and Carver grumpily picks up the stack. “So,” he says, sorting through his hand. “Uh ... how's the cheese collecting going?”

Merrill blinks. “Varric, do you collect cheese?” When the dwarf shakes his head she gives Carver a nervous look. “Oh, you mean me? I ... actually ... I've run out of cheese.”

“How did you eat _all_ that cheese already?” They had bought a _lot_ of cheese together. “That much cheese should have made you fat.” It's a compliment, Carver thinks. Because. He's saying she's not fat. Girls like that sort of thing. It's something Garrett has always been good at, while Carver, usually, isn't at all.

Merrill wriggles a little in her seat. “I didn't eat it all. It was the rats.” She makes a face. “Now I have fat rats.”

“Daisy,” Varric says gently, “it's your turn.”

“Three,” she says, putting down a card.

Carver can't help grinning. “We're up to two,” he says.

“Oh!” Merrill takes back her card, looks at it, and puts it down again. “Two,” she says. That's _it_ , Carver can't _take_ it any more. He laughs, wiping a hand over his eyes because she's so incredibly sweet, and oh, Maker, maybe he does love her a bit. 

“Why are you _laughing_?” She frowns. “You _said_ we were up to two.”

“I ... thought of something funny, that's all,” Carver tells her, and Varric nods, smiling a little.

Merrill isn't a monster. She's just Merrill. And Carver realises with a rush how much he's missed her.

They play some more, and Carver drinks a bit, and Varric tells Merrill a long story with a lot of walnuts in it, which Merrill seems to think are dirty only Carver can't see how.

Later, Carver walks her home. She seems happy, but every now and then she looks up at him with something he thinks might be uncertainty.

“You're angry with me,” she says after an uncharacteristic silence.

It's a bit of a shock. He wasn't ever _angry_. “No I'm not,” he protests.

She shakes her head. “You _disapprove_.”

Well, yeah. “I'm just,” and he pauses, trying to find the right words. This is important, and Carver has messed up nearly every important conversation in his _life_ , so he'd better get this one _right_. “I worry. About you.”

She huffs, stopping in the street and folding her arms. “Everybody _worries_ so. I can take care of myself, you know. I know what I'm doing. I wish everyone wouldn't treat me like a child.”

And they do. Carver realises this and he's appalled, because if there's anything he hates it's _that_. From his brother. From his mother. From bloody _Aveline_. At least Isabela didn't. And Fenris...

“ _I_ don't think you're a child,” Carver says, and Merrill smiles up at him so shyly he could easily just lean down and kiss her. 

But he doesn't. “Thankyou,” she says, and then, “I won't hurt you. You know that, don't you? I would _never_ hurt you.”

It's sort of surreal, a little bit of a thing like her being reassuring about something like that. Only. She _is_ a mage. “I know,” he says, and then they stand awkwardly for a bit before he clears his throat and points up at the sky. “I think I just saw a shooting star.”

“Ohhh, really? Where?” 

It's impossible to point out stars, and Carver knows it. “It's gone, now,” he tells her, and she makes a face, complaining about missing all the best things.

They move on, and when they reach her house he asks if she needs anyone to look behind the doors. “No,” she says, smiling. “I've got much better at it. Thankyou, though.”

“You're all right,” he says, and he means it. She is. And she will be. He'll make sure of it.


	16. Chapter 16

Anders sees him scratching and his mouth quirks up on one side. “Got a little itch, little Hawke?”

Carver scowls, tucking his thumbs into his belt. “Why don't you sod off?” The itch, though, is persistent and it takes an effort to keep his hands away from his crotch.

The mage turns away, but Caver can see him still smirking, even as they climb the stupid mountain his stupid brother has decided he needs to climb, looking for _flowers_ of all things. The day is warm. Carver is sweaty. Itchiness is a problem. He tries to ignore it, but when he's sure no-one is looking he does scratch a little, surreptitiously.

“You know, I've treated a few of the girls at the Rose,” the mage says in a conversational tone. “Some of the lads too. There's something going around. If anyone was spending any time there, they might want me to take a look at any ... irritating problems they might be having. If,” and he gives Carver a sly look, “they _did_ have a little itch.”

Carver ignores him, ignores the itch, and concentrates on following his brother up the bloody mountain.

Later, though, when it gets too uncomfortable, he finds himself in Darktown, glaring at the door of Anders' clinic, trying not to scratch.

This is _embarrassing_ , but it has to be done. Carver walks into the clinic long past sunset, and it's empty but for a woman sweeping the floor who gives him a thorough once-over look and scowls. “He needs his rest,” she says curtly, but Carver ignores her, and knocks hard on the inner door.

When the door opens, the first thing Carver thinks is how tired the mage looks. He can't be that old, Carver's pretty sure, but right now he looks weary as an old man, and Carver thinks maybe the woman was right, and now isn't the best time.

Then Anders smiles, a knowing smile that puts Carver's teeth on edge, and steps back. “Decided to get your irritations checked out, then, before your favourite parts rotted off? Good choice.”

There is a reason no-one likes the mage, Carver thinks, and it's his damn mouth. “Nothing's rotting off,” he snaps.

“Not _yet_ ,” and the mage smirks, gesturing for Carver to come in.

He does. The room is tiny, badly furnished, and reeks of potions. Carver wrinkles his nose. Urgh, how could anyone sleep in this stench? And why doesn't the mage _charge_ for healing? He could at least rent a room with a window, then.

“Drop your trousers,” the mage says, collapsing into a chair and folding his hands into a steeple on his chest. “I don't have all night.”

Is he just going to watch? It looks exactly like he's going to watch, and Carver hesitates, thinking about leaving, but really the itch is nasty and it needs to be _gone_. “Don't get any funny ideas,” he growls.

The mage shakes his head. “I solemnly swear that your rash won't overwhelm me with such lust that I feel the urge to ravish you,” he says, clearly amused, and Carver decides that getting this over with is the best idea, because if he doesn't he's going to punch the man, and then Anders will go all blue and crackly and probably tear his head off.

So. He undoes his trousers and pulls them down, and tries not to watch as the mage leans forward to inspect him. It's pretty impersonal, actually, though Carver knows his face is beet red and he would rather be anywhere but here.

Anders raises an eyebrow and puts one hand lightly on Carver's hip. There is a brief flare of magic and then he leans back, apparently satisfied. “Well, you'll be pleased to know that there's nothing wrong with you that you can _give_ anyone. Here.” He catches a small jar up off a shelf, offering it to Carver with a flourish. “That will help with the itching. But you're going to have to get your mother to stop washing your smalls in whatever she's washing them in, because you're allergic. Even plain water would be better, unless they're filthy, and I don't want to hear about it if they are so don't tell me. You're lucky, you know,” he adds, leaning his chin on his fist and looking up at Carver thoughtfully. “And so's Isabela. I have no idea how she manages not to end up in here, but between the two of you and the Blooming Rose you're an epidemic waiting to happen.”

If it were possible to go more red then Carver would do it. He pulls up his trousers and tucks the jar away, and then glares at the mage. “And I suppose my brother is pure as light.” The mage shrugs, looking bored, and it makes Carver's teeth hurt. “Don't think I don't know about you two,” he says crossly, which gets a reaction at least, though not quite the one he was after. Anders looks startled, and then wary, folding his arms and frowning.

“There's nothing to know,” he says quietly, and Carver can't let that go.

“Really? I suppose you think I'm blind. The way you two--” and he breaks off, not wanting to put it into words.

Anders' face shifts, and Carver can't read him at all. “You're welcome,” he says evenly. “And you can go. Bring back the jar when it's empty. I can never get enough jars.”

Carver realises he never said thankyou, but it's too late now, so he just nods. “Right, then,” and leaves. There was something not quite right about that, though, and it worries him a little, gnawing at him because he's missing something. Or maybe he's putting too much importance on things that don't mean anything. Again.


	17. Chapter 17

It's one of those days where Carver follows his brother around Kirkwall on a long series of meaningless errands. Why he does this, he can't be sure. There's not much else to do, really, and sometimes Garrett chucks him a bit of equipment or some potions or a little spare coin, which almost makes up for spending the day being, essentially, the muscle.

At least there's plenty of opportunities for conversation.

“Templars?” Fenris touches the hilt of his sword, frowning a little. “I believe they are necessary. Why do you ask?”

Carver shrugs, trying to look nonchalant. “My brother says father named me after a Templar. I thought that might mean something. It probably doesn’t,” he adds quickly, but Fenris is looking at him sideways, and _that_ is his thoughtful face.

“Your father was a mage.” One of those statement-questions he likes so much. Carver nods. Fenris pauses, and then-- “This Templar was ... significant to him.”

“Helped him escape the Circle,” Carver says.

“Then your father named you after the man to whom he owed his freedom.” Fenris’ expression shutters. “A Templar who let his charge escape.” Which, frankly, sounds like Fenris doesn’t think he was a particularly _good_ Templar.

“If he hadn’t, I’d never have been born,” Carver argues, too hotly, but Fenris either ignores it or doesn’t notice.

“A good point,” he says quietly. He’s smiling, Carver thinks, just a little, a tiny curl at the corner of his mouth that isn’t a smirk, but it’s hard to tell when Fenris won’t bloody well look up. Carver wishes he wouldn't hide his smiles, but it's probably for the best because when Fenris smiles it makes Carver want to smile, and then he'd get caught with some dumb, goofy expression on his face and everyone, including Fenris, would laugh at him.

The subject comes up again later while Garrett is intimidating the living daylights out of a couple of Fereldan refugees who have dared to try and play the sympathy card with him for money.

“Your sister,” and Fenris fumbles the word a little. “She was also a mage.”

It seems irrelevant and Carver prepares to bristle. “Yeah?”

“And you protected her.”

Carver opens his mouth to argue that he did the best he bleeding could, and it isn’t his _fault_ that she died, that it’s _no-one’s_ , and if it’s anyone’s at all it’s _Garrett’s_ and not his, but this is _Fenris_ and his expression is so serious that Carver can’t bring himself to shout. “I tried,” he says, and even that is defensive as hell.

Fenris nods. “From the Templars.” Oh. Of course. “But also from herself.”

“How do you mean?”

“You would not let her become an abomination.”

Carver stops dead on the steps. What?

The others go on without him but Fenris pauses at the top, looking back. “Hawke?”

“You mean I would have killed her myself,” Carver says, horrified.

Fenris shifts restlessly. They have been left behind and soon they’ll have to catch up, but for now, they have an island of privacy in the crowd, people flowing around the two warriors with enormous swords and leaving them well alone. “We have slain abominations,” Fenris says matter-of-factly. “You have seen what they are. Would you have seen that happen to your sister and done nothing?”

“I--” but he can’t finish that because he doesn’t know. Would he? _Could_ he? Was that what Bethany had made him promise, all those years ago?

Fenris trots down the steps until he's one above Carver, and they are eye height, now, which is strange. “Would you see that happen to your _brother_ , and do nothing?”

It feels a bit like Fenris has reached right into his chest and squeezed. “No,” Carver says.

“And yet, while you follow him you guard his back, and bear witness that he is _not_ an abomination, and that he has _not_ resorted to blood magic?”

Carver swallows. That’s a lot to agree to. “Yes,” he says, gruffly.

“Then perhaps you are already a Templar,” Fenris says. He jerks his head. “Come.”

Carver follows, his head full of thoughts. His brother is annoyed when they catch up, and prods Carver hard in the shoulder. “Did you get lost? Distracted by something shiny?”

_I could take your bloody head off with one swing, you git._

Maybe there’s some of that in his face because Garrett looks uneasy. “Don’t lollygag,” he says. “I need you.”

 _Yeah_ , Carver thinks. _You do._

His brother frowns, shakes his head, and heaves a long cloth-wrapped bundle into Fenris' arms. “Here. I got you something.”

Fenris takes it easily. It's still surprising how strong he is compared to Garrett, the taller one with the shoulders and the beard. Fenris unwraps the bundle warily. It's a sword, a bloody great beast of a thing that makes Carver's throat close with want.

Fenris frees the sword and hefts it experimentally. “Hmmm.” He shakes his head. “This would be more appropriate for you,” he says, offering it hilt-first to Carver.

“What?” Garrett frowns and gives Carver a hard look. “Why? This is the best they had.”

“The weight. The reach. This one,” and he gestures at the sword on his back, “is precise. The other is more brutal.”

Brutal. Carver rolls the word around in his mind and decides that he likes it.

“I want _you_ to have it,” Garrett says, and Carver can hear the anger rising in his voice, and of _course_.

Fenris shifts, tilting his head up to give Garrett a flat look. “The gesture is appreciated.”

There's a tense moment, then Garrett growls. “Fine. Do what you like. Carver, give me yours and I'll see what I can get for it.”

Carver automatically opens his mouth to argue, but pauses. There's nothing, actually, to argue about. Still, he's sullen as he swaps his old sword for the new one, and it's not really new, it's used, but it's a nice piece of work all the same. His brother goes back to the vendor to bargain, and Carver gives the sword an experimental swing. Oh, that feels _good_.

He catches Fenris watching and feels suddenly self-conscious. “Is that true, what you said?”

“Do you disagree?”

Carver shakes his head. “No. But he really did want you to have it.”

Fenris shrugs, face twisting into what could almost be a sneer. “What would a mage know about weapons?”

 _That's_ the damn truth. Carver opens his mouth to say something clever, but before he can think of anything Fenris blinks, tipping his head back sharply to look up at the sky. Carver follows his gaze and gets a fat drop of water in the eye. “Shit!”

The rain comes on suddenly and hard, and Garrett shouts something about heading back to the Hanged Man, but Fenris just _stands_ there, face turned up into the downpour. Carver ducks under the awning of a shop. “Fenris! What are you doing?”

Fenris holds up his hands, cradling the rain in his palms.

“Is this an elf thing?” Carver yells. “Are you being one with nature?”

That makes Fenris laugh, shake his head, and he peers at Carver through the wet clumps of his fringe. “It is _fine_. Come out and see for yourself.”

“I'll get _wet_!”

“Yes. That is what rain does.”

Is Fenris _mocking_ him? That can't stand. 

Carver steps out from under the awning and the rain hits the back of his neck, making him shiver. It's not so cold, though, just heavy and wet. This is stupid. He feels _stupid_. Fenris, meanwhile, seems to be enjoying himself.

“I'm getting wet!” Carver protests as the water plasters his hair to his forehead.

“And it has not killed you,” Fenris tells him. They look like idiots, Carver's sure, with not enough sense to come in out of the rain. There's a reason that's a saying, right? Because anyone with any sense _would_ come in.

“Fenris,” Carver says after a moment. “There's a bloody great hole in your roof.”

“Yes.”

“Your house is getting wet. On the inside.” Which is the moment the rain chooses to let up, trailing off into the kind of aggressively bright sunlight that follows a summer squall, making everything look fresh and newly washed.

Fenris snorts, shaking his head and shedding water droplets. “It will dry.”

Carver wipes the water off his face, and sneezes. “Urgh, if I get sick I'm blaming you. My _mother_ will blame you. Don't say I didn't warn you.”

“Handsome men can't be hurt by water,” Fenris says and then he blinks, glancing away at the puddles on the ground.

“I guess you'll be fine, then,” Carver grumbles, trying to slick the water out of his hair, and mostly just making it join the dampness down the back of his neck.

Fenris shifts, looking back at him, and raises a hand almost as if he's going to touch Carver's face, which makes Carver flinch because those gauntlets are bloody _sharp_. Fenris hesitates, and takes back his hand, frowning. There's water in his eyelashes.

It is, Carver thinks, completely unfair that someone can look so unconcerned that they're _wet_ , can have their hair stuck in clumps to their temples and still manage to be so, so ... so _Fenris_.

He swallows, suddenly awkward. “I need a towel.”

Fenris lets out a breath, and nods. “I will see you tomorrow.” It doesn't quite turn up at the end into a question, but Carver is used to this now.

“Tomorrow?”

Fenris twitches, touching his sword, the back of one gauntlet and then the other. It makes him look uncertain. “It has been some time since we practised together. I would like to see you try out the sword.”

Oh. “Okay. Yeah, I'll ... see you in the morning?”

Fenris nods. “Agreed.”

Carver's mother clucks at him when he comes in, leaving wet bootmarks on her, well, clean-as-she-can-get-it floor, and she makes him change into dry clothes and drink hot tea while she rubs his hair with a towel, but it's worth it if it stops him catching a cold. After all, he has things to do tomorrow, and the thought is more warming than the tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must confess that 'Handsome men can't be hurt by water' is from Ouran High School Host Club, as an easter egg for a friendo, so technically not mine.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've sped up Fenris' timeline and slowed Garrett's down. For fun!

“You are in possession of stolen property!”

The words make no sense, but Fenris' _face_ makes sense, and Carver draws his sword without thought because this? This shit is unbelievable.

“Back away from the slave now and you'll be spared!”

Garrett opens his mouth but Carver doesn't give him time. “How about you _sod off?_ ”

And then it's on. Maybe there was a more diplomatic way of dealing with this but Carver doesn't care. They came for _Fenris_ , and that's unforgivable. It's not as soul-satisfying as scything through monsters or people who actually want him personally dead, but no-one calls Fenris a slave, bleeding _no-one_ , and the only thing that stops him from tearing every one of them apart is the fact that Fenris gets to most of them first. And, of course, his brother rains down fire on them like a storm, which is helpful, not that Carver would ever admit as much out loud.

The last one pleads for mercy, but Fenris is ruthless, extracts the information from him that they need and then breaks the man's neck without hesitation.

“Hadriana,” and he chews the name as if it's a old bone. “My old master's apprentice. If she's here, it's at his bidding. We must go quickly,” he says, and Garrett, to Carver's disgust, hesitates.

“Fenris, is this so important?”

What?

“What?” Fenris shakes his head. “ _What?_ ”

“Can't this wait? Only, Bartrand is leaving for the Deep Roads in the morning. It's late,” and he glances up at the sky as if they can't all see how the sun is kissing the horizon.

“ _What?!_ ” Carver can't help himself. “Brother!”

“No, this cannot wait.” Fenris holds up his fists, glaring at them as if they are somehow to blame for all of this. “If we do not go after her now then she will find a way to escape. I must finish this. I _must_.”

“It's not like it's Danarius himself,” Garrett says, using his 'I'm being reasonable, why don't you help me out here?' tone of voice, and it makes Carver seethe. “Surely the worst that can happen is that she skives off and you never have to see her again. Come _on_ , Fenris. One lousy woman. Surely you can let that go.”

“No!” Fenris bares his teeth and for a moment Carver thinks he's going to have to ... what? Hold Fenris back? Hold his brother down so that Fenris can punch him in the damn mouth? The moment passes and Fenris is pacing like a caged animal, hands curled into claws. “You don't understand! I _must_ do this. If you won't help me,” and he pauses, hunching in on himself, “then I will go alone.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Garrett says, smiling, because for Garrett smiles always work.

“Just go!” Fenris turns and starts off up the hill, not looking back.

“Fenris!” Carver takes a step, and his brother's hand is on his arm, no real impediment but it makes him stop and look back.

“Let him be,” Garrett says, his face blank. “If he wants to go, then let him.”

No rutting way. “I can't believe you.” Carver yanks his arm free and stumbles back. “I can't believe you'd just ... I can't _believe_ you!”

“Carver, don't be a fool!”

That, at least, is familiar. “Isn't that what you've always thought of me?” He turns and runs, and if Garrett calls after him he doesn't hear it.

He catches Fenris up and falls in beside him. Neither of them speak at first, but after a while Fenris slows, inhales, exhales, and glances at him. “You should go back.”

“I'm not going without you.”

Fenris stops then, turns, and looks at him. “This is suicide,” he says flatly.

Well. That's blunt. Carver had hoped they had a better chance than _that_. But. He takes a deep breath. “I won't let you go alone.”

Fenris looks ... confused? Not really angry. He does something with his hands that on anyone else would come off as helpless, but Carver _knows_ he isn't helpless, so it can't be that. “Why must you ... I do not want you to come with me.”

It's entirely possible that Carver could take that personally, and part of him does. The rest of him, though, is determined. “Tough,” he growls. “I'm not going anywhere. Unless it's up there,” and he points, “with you, or back to Kirkwall, with you. Or, we could just stay here. Whatever. I don't give a brass ball.”

Fenris twists, his whole body writhing as though it's trying to tear itself loose, but nothing is holding him and Carver doesn't know what to do. “Fine!” He drags his fingers through his hair, and Carver winces because the points of his gauntlets have to _hurt_. “Fine. We will go back.”

“To get _help_ ,” Carver says firmly. 

Fenris gives him a wild look. “Your brother,” he starts, but Carver can't bear it.

“Fuck my brother! We can get help that isn't _him_!”

Fenris stares at him, and the sharp edges of his cheekbones are gold in the setting sun. He nods. “Very well.”

They go back. They argue along the way about who to go to. Fenris wants Sebastian. Carver wants Isabela. They agree, after some heated debate, that both options are better than Merrill, who Fenris believes is a danger to them all and Carver thinks is too fragile for something like this. And then he checks himself. She probably isn't. But. The less peril he puts her in, the better.

They find Sebastian praying. Carver rolls his eyes, because what could be more cliched than finding a priest praying, of all things, but Fenris touches Carver lightly on the wrist and frowns before kneeling down next to Sebastian and putting his hands together and ... okay, that's _weird_. Now they're praying _together_.

He stands back, watching them both, and when they're done he's surprised to see how calm Fenris is now, how focussed.

“Of course I will help,” Sebastian says when it's explained. He lays a hand on Fenris' arm, and it makes Carver bristle because Fenris _lets_ him. 

Isabela doesn't even need an explanation, just knocks back a drink -- “For the road,” she says, winking -- and follows them into the twilight.

Looking for a cave in the dark is a terrible idea. Carver stumbles into three holes, making Isabela chuckle under her breath. How she skims over the ground so absolutely silently is beyond him, but Sebastian can do it too and that sets Carver's teeth on edge.

It wouldn't bother him so much if Fenris didn't manage to pick his way so neatly between the rocks and the potholes and the tufts of stringy grass dotting the path. Bloody elves, all agile and graceful and possibly-able-to-see-in-the-dark. Carver tries not to let his armour clank too much, feeling big and clumsy and a Maker-damned liability.

Fenris whispers to them about the caves, about slavers, and Carver thinks his blood must be boiling because this is just _shit_. Holding people in pens, like animals, for no good reason except profit, which is a rotten reason to treat anyone this way. No wonder Fenris hates slavers.

He also tells them to expect defences. “Whatever they have in store,” Isabela murmurs, keeping her voice low, “I'm sure we'll waltz right through. We're _good_ at that.”

It's not quite as easy as she makes it sound, but Isabela picks out the traps, and they all know what to do when being attacked. Sebastian is much more useful than Carver expected, and really, what kind of Chant-basher shoots people in the _back?_

Not that he's complaining. Sebastian is bloody _handy_ , and Carver's grateful for the cover he lays down, giving Fenris and himself a chance to charge ahead and obliterate their enemies.

The slave girl is another matter. She's distraught, and Carver can't quite figure out if it's simply because the magister killed her father or because she doesn't understand _why_. It upsets him; she doesn't seem to hate the woman for what she did, just looks lost and confused. 

“Are you my master now?” she asks, and Fenris recoils. 

“No!”

“But--”

“No.” Fenris shakes his head. “No. Now you're _free_.”

By the looks of it, this doesn't comfort her at all. “What will I do?”

It's awful. Carver can't say anything, and Fenris seems too distressed for words. In the end, Sebastian offers her some money and encourages her to seek shelter in the Chantry. Her gratitude is sickening, but she goes, and Carver hopes she makes it back to the city without breaking her neck in a ditch.

Fenris gives the priest a grateful look. “Thankyou.”

Sebastian nods. “The Maker will provide for her, as He does for us all.” 

Urgh. _What a twat._

The magister, when they find her, isn't easy to kill. It's Isabela, really, who does the most damage, stepping in and out of the shadows like a ghost while the rest of them try not to get flattened by magic.

Magic. Carver is starting to hate how easily it pours out of these people, how they twitch their fingers and cut out someone else's lifeblood to summon demons and set fire to the sky. Bethany wasn't like this. Bethany would _never_ have been like this, using the deaths of others to bend the world to her will.

Even Merrill isn't like this. He wishes, now, that they'd brought Merrill with them, because then they'd have magic of their own. He's grateful that Isabela gave Sebastian magebane, and that he treated all his arrows before they came down here, because without that then, yes, as Fenris said, it would have been suicide.

It's luck, in the end. Isabela uses her last flask to fill the magister's face with smoke and gets hurled against a wall for her trouble. Carver sees her go down, a crumple of limbs, and his heart feels wrenched in half but he can't stop now, not when they're so close. He charges the woman, knocks her down, and he knows he doesn't have the strength to finish her but an arrow cuts between them, pinning her to the ground, and when she holds up her hand to blast him in the face the magic falters, and he wouldn't be able to say who is more surprised, him or her.

Fenris is suddenly there. He takes a deep breath that seems to give him strength and raises his sword, and it's a relief, because Isabela is so still Carver is afraid she's dead.

He stumbles over to her, pushes her onto her back, and fumbles a potion from his belt. _Come on, come_ on _, Isabela!_ She's breathing, at least, and he hauls her up, forces her mouth open, and tries to tip the potion into her.

She coughs, opens her eyes, and starts shoving him away. “Tastes like _balls_ ,” she splutters, liquid leaking down her cheek, and he wants to laugh because she's okay, thank the Maker, thank Andraste, thank _everything_. He wipes potion off her face with his thumb, and he _is_ laughing, he must be, because she gives him a narrow look. “So funny?” she slurs, trying to sit up and mostly sprawling in his lap. “Bet your balls don't taste much _better_.”

“You're all right,” he gasps, because if she can joke she's going to be fine.

“Depends on your definition,” she says woozily, wincing. “I think my arm's broken. Oooh,” and she collapses on him. “Andraste's _tits_! Definitely ... broken.” She rolls onto her back, clutching her arm. “This is the _worst_ date, puppy. Next time I want dinner and _dancing_.”

There's a flash of light and that _sound_ , and Carver jerks because Fenris has just put his fist through someone's chest, again, and every time he does Carver reminds himself never to piss Fenris off. _Maker._

“We are done here.”

Sebastian is shaking his head. “Fenris, is that what your word is worth?”

Fenris spits on the ground. “That's what her bloody _deal_ was worth!”

Carver thinks this might be the first time he's ever heard Fenris curse, and it's chilling. “Fenris?”

“All that matters is that I finally got to crush this bitch's heart. May she rot,” and his face is pure fury. “And all the other mages rot with her.”

Carver tries to get to his feet, but Isabela has her good hand locked in the buckles of his armour, and her weight is enough to keep him on his knees.

“Maybe we should leave,” Sebastian says, putting his hand on Fenris' arm, but Fenris shakes him off violently.

“No! I don't want you comforting me!”

Sebastian holds up his hands, palms out. He sounds so calm. “Fenris. This doesn't mean we shouldn't look for your sister. She's _family_. That should mean something to you.”

What? Fenris has a _sister_?

“Even if I found my sister, who knows what the magisters have done to her? What has magic touched that it doesn't _spoil_?” He scowls, and turns to stalk away.

Carver still can't get up with Isabela holding him down, but he shouts after Fenris anyway. “Fenris! Hang on a bloody minute! Maker-- _fuck_ , Isabela!”

“Just give him a few,” she says, and her face is very pale. She's sweating. It's not battle sweat, though, and he remembers her arm.

“Shit. Are you all right?”

“You said I was,” she hisses through her teeth. “I could do with another of your horrible potions, though. Does anyone have anything we can use as a splint?”

Sebastian fixes her up, splinting her arm and tying her a sling. “You're a brave woman,” he says with admiration.

Isabela laughs weakly. “Oh, you should _see_ how brave. I'm brave enough to face Andraste's wrath getting into your trousers.”

Sebastian shakes his head. “Too brave, perhaps. There. I'm going to lift you up, now. Put your good arm around my shoulders.”

“Mmm, I'd gladly wrap my good _everything_ around _you_ ,” she says, and she winks at him.

Well. At least she's feeling better.

“We need to go,” Carver says, and he's not _worried_ about Fenris, he's just ... worried.

“Do me a favour, sweet thing?” Isabela leans on Sebastian's arm and gestures with her chin. “Just go through everyone's pockets, for me? There's a darling.”

When they get back to the city, Sebastian says he'll see to her, which makes Isabela chuckle in a very suggestive way. “Oh, I'm such a lucky girl.” She kicks Carver in the ankle. “ _You_ go after Fenris. He'll be brooding somewhere, probably. Try not to let him do the magical fisting thing on you. Unless you like that sort of thing.”

She's impossible, but her advice is welcome. Carver takes the stairs two at a time, jogging half the way to the mansion, trying to sneak through the shadows for the other half, because the last thing he wants is to be ambushed on his own by a bunch of thugs.

The door of the mansion is unlocked, and Fenris isn't there. Carver wanders about the place, knocking on doors and finding them all unlocked but the rooms beyond them empty. The whole place is cold and dark, strewn with debris that gets underfoot and makes him stumble. One of these days he's going to tell his mother about this, and Fenris will be visited on by a matriarchal vengeance of cleaning. Maybe they should have brought that elf girl back here to keep house. The two of them could bond over how great it is not to be a slave any more. Not that she looked particularly happy about it.

Fenris is _definitely_ not here. Carver goes back to the room Fenris sleeps in and doesn't know what to do. It's cold enough to make him shiver, his clothes still sweat-damp under his armour, so he decides the best thing would be to lay a fire. There's kindling, flint and steel, and enough wood for the night at least. He gets it lit easily enough. Back in Ferelden this had been one of his chores, to make sure the fire was going on winter mornings. His father taught him how, showing him the best way to layer woodshavings and twigs to make sure air could get through, and how to build the wood up so that it didn't just collapse in on itself and smother the new blaze. It's so familiar that he can almost hear his father's voice, patient and strict and always teaching someone something.

It's a good fire. By the time he's done he's well aware of how tired he is, and how late it's become. He takes off his armour and tries to dry out and warm up a little. This fire is foolish, he thinks, with the hole in the roof letting out all the heat, but it lights the room a bit and makes it feel less like a crypt in here.

There's most of a bottle of wine sitting on the mantelpiece, so Carver takes it down, sinking into a chair by the hearth and drinking some. Fenris probably wouldn't mind. Tonight he probably has bigger things to worry about. Or, maybe, tonight he would mind _especially_ because of the bigger things.

 _Burn it_. If Fenris is going to rip out his heart then he's going to do it because Carver is _in his house_ without permission. Might as well give him as much reason as he bloody wants.

He's staring into the flames and thinking gloomily about dying at the hands of an impossibly broody elf when he hears the front door bang; it's so loud in the silent house that it makes him jump and nearly drop the bottle.

He sits up, then tries to relax, then thinks about standing, then puts down the bottle and _does_ stand up, and there aren't any footsteps on the stairs but then again there _wouldn't_ be, because elves move like bloody _cats_.

Then-- “Hawke?”

“I didn't know where you went,” Carver says, which hadn't been what he'd meant to say at all, he'd planned something clever like, 'Long time between drinks,' or something, but the words just fall out of his mouth. “You were just gone, and you weren't here, and I _looked_ for you.”

Fenris glances at the fire, and at Carver, and then for some reason at the _bed_ , before coming all the way into the room. “You ... found the flint.”

“I didn't find _you_ ,” Carver says. There's too much space between them, so he closes it, nearly, staying just out of fist-through-the-chest range in case Fenris is angrier than he looks. He doesn't look angry. He looks something, but not angry.

“I'm here now,” he says, so quietly Carver could have missed it if he'd been any further away.

“Where did you go?”

Fenris squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “I needed to think.”

Carver nods, not because he understands _at all_ , but largely because Fenris is here now and he doesn't want Fenris to leave again. “But you're here now,” and, urgh, he's not even repeating _himself_.

“Yes,” Fenris says. He takes off his sword and lays it aside, not quite looking at Carver who remembers now that he's in his undershirt, and maybe it's a bit ... familiar, to just do that in someone else's house. Fenris doesn't mention it, though. “I would have thought, if anyone, then it would have been Sebastian,” he says quietly.

Oh. Carver chews his lip. That's just ... ouch. “I guess I could go and get him for you,” he says sullenly, because sometimes he just can't help himself.

“No, I did not mean...” Fenris makes a small gesture with his hands, palms up, for honesty. “I am _glad_ you're here.” He turns, and it's hard to think of anything except the way that his eyes catch the firelight and how intense his gaze is. 

“Are you all right?” Carver asks in a whisper.

Fenris nods, pulling off one of his gauntlets. “For now.” He lifts his hand and steps forward to touch his fingers lightly to Carver's jaw, rasping against the coming stubble. “Are you?”

“Maker, yes,” Carver breathes, and his skin is tingling, not just where Fenris touches him but all over. 

Fenris makes a noise, and then he has his fingers in Carver's hair, knotting them tightly, but not quite tight enough to hurt. “Are you _sure_?”

“Of course I'm fucking _sure_ ,” Carver snaps, but that's as far as he gets because Fenris _kisses_ him, and Carver's heart just _stops_.

It's nothing like kissing Isabela. That had been soft and hot and exciting, but this is like having his chest squeezed and all his breath sucked away. It's not even slightly soft. It's messy. He's clumsy. There are teeth on his lip and he gasps, and Fenris _growls_ , which goes right to his crotch because Fenris is growling for _him_.

He staggers back and nearly falls over a bench someone has left idiotically in the middle of the room; he has to grab at Fenris, who catches him and pulls him back up and kisses him _again_. This time it's even better.

The points of Fenris' other gauntlet stab into his back, but he doesn't care and reaches for him, both arms wrapping around the elf's torso. Fenris stiffens and jerks away from him. “No,” he says sharply.

Carver blinks, dazed and hot in the face. “No?”

Fenris pulls himself free of Carver's hands, and just holds them out a little way from his sides. “I don't ... not like that.”

What? “Like what, then?”

He looks uncertain, shifting his feet. “Let me,” he says, peering up at Carver through his hair, and Carver lets out a breath, because for a moment there he thought this was all going to be _over_.

“I'll let you do whatever you _want_ ,” he says, relieved. Fenris inhales sharply, his eyes going wide.

“Then,” and he lets go of Carver's hands to remove his remaining gauntlet, flexing his fingers. He hesitates for a moment before shedding his armour, stripping to the waist. Carver can't stop staring, because he's seen Fenris _naked_ , already, but never so _close_ , and Fenris is all smooth planes of olive muscle lined in white and Carver wants to kiss him again.

He lifts a hand to smooth it down all that firm flesh, but Fenris catches it with his own. “No,” he says, softly this time.

“Okay,” Carver says, confused. Fenris takes Carver's other hand, pulls it up to press the knuckles to his mouth, grazing them with his teeth and watching him. Carver shudders. “Okay. If you ... want. Okay.” No hands. Fenris gets to use his hands but Carver doesn't. All right.

Their fingers knot together and Fenris uses them to pull Carver back down, and Carver lets him, finding Fenris' mouth and burying himself in it. He lets Fenris push him back, stumbling a little but somehow ending up against a wall with Fenris hard against him. He lets Fenris pull his shirt up, and helps, yanking it over his head and dropping it somewhere on the floor, and then he lets Fenris press his hands back, holding his palms flat against the cold stone. 

Carver has a wildly inappropriate memory of Isabela naked, saying something about letting Fenris throw him up against a wall, and, okay, maybe this _was_ what she meant.

Fenris' mouth tastes of pepper and ash, and Carver can't get enough of it. He digs his fingers into the wall as if he's curling them into flesh. It's not the same. It's agonising.

“Maker, Fenris, I just want to _touch_ you,” and maybe he's whimpering, but it's too late to care.

There's a sharp spike of pain as teeth close on his neck. “If you could,” Fenris growls into his skin, “what would you do with your hands?”

He blinks. “I--” Fenris bites him again, a little lower, and Carver tries to summon something coherent that isn't just 'please keep doing that'. “I'd put them on you.”

“Where?”

“Your chest?”

Fenris places both his hands on Carver's chest, resting them lightly with the fingers splayed, and tilts his head back to look up into Carver's eyes. “And then?”

It's hard to think. “I'd slide them down,” he says, and Fenris does, too quickly. “No, sort of,” and he swallows, “sort of slow. I'd ... feel you. With my thumbs.”

Fenris does this, leaning his head on Carver's shoulder and humming lightly. He strokes his way down, circling each muscle as he finds it. “Then?”

Oh, it's a _game_. A sex game. This is ... different. Carver licks his lips, and thinks. “I'd run my hands up your back and ... and hold you. Um. Against me.” Fenris' hands are warm between him and the wall. He can feel the strength in them, and deliberation in the way that Fenris drags his fingers down, kneading with them, not even a little tentative as he pulls himself up against Carver's chest, his breath making hot damp circles on Carver's skin.

“And?”

“I'd kiss you,” he says, ducking his head. Fenris comes up to be kissed, and Carver mumbles into his mouth. “Mmph, as a distraction while I ... tried to sneak a, a hand … in your pants, to see if, if you'd let me...”

Fenris closes his teeth on Carver's lip and tugs on it, and Carver completely forgets about the hands-in-pants thing until Fenris has his belt open and there are fingers sliding against the cloth of his smalls, and when he does realise he makes a high-pitched sound in his throat.

“And then?” He can hear the smile in that, can feel it against his lip. Fenris is smiling. He must be enjoying this. Whatever the fuck this is.

Carver swallows, squeezing his eyes shut. He can't say it. He has to say it. _Come on,_ say _it_. “I'd put my hand on you to see ... if you're hard. For me.”

He hears Fenris' breath hitch, and then there's a hand slipping into his trousers, curling around him, and _fuck_ that feels a _ma_ zing, and he tries not to whimper but maybe he does a bit anyway.

There's a ragged intake of breath. Carver thinks he knows what's coming. “And now?”

But this is as far as he can go, because beyond this he can't say what he wants out loud. He can barely even imagine it. “Maker's _mercy_ , Fenris, I don't ... I don't _know_...”

Fenris makes a low noise in his throat, and slides his hand out of Carver's trousers. Oh. _No_. He's mad. He wants to stop. _No!_ Carver opens his mouth to say something embarrassing, like 'please' or 'fucking, _please!_ ' but Fenris just takes one of Carver's hands and presses it against his own crotch, rocking his hips up and, oh, Carver isn't the only one who's hard now. “For you,” he growls.

That's. Just. Yeah.

He cranes forward, trying to catch Fenris' mouth again, but the elf peels away, takes a step back and licks his lips, breathing hard. He shakes his head, hair falling down over his eyes, and drops his hands to the fastenings of his leggings and-- Carver has never seen anyone take off their pants so very ... he doesn't have a word for what that is, but it makes his breath catch in his throat.

Now he's naked. _Holy Andraste_. Carver tries not to stare but he's so ... _naked_ , and all the way over _there_. Carver takes a step away from the wall and Fenris steps back, glancing over his shoulder and then at Carver, lifting a hand and twitching his fingers. “Come.”

Carver follows him across the room and somehow manages to stumble out of his trousers; he knows it's clumsy but at least he doesn't fall down. That's a good thing, right? And he was wearing _boots_ too, not like some people who can just slide out of their clothes without anything catching on anything. He hesitates over his smalls but Fenris is completely bare-arsed so he shoves them down and kicks them across the floor and tries really hard not to cover himself with one or both of his hands.

Fenris is looking at him. Carver shivers, not because it's cold but because Fenris is looking, really _looking_ , the way that he has himself looked at women in the past or, he supposes, the way he's seen Isabela look at men, like they're some kind of delicious dish of meat to be eaten. It's not a bad thing. It's just … different. No-one's ever looked at him like that. Not even Isabela. Not that he noticed.

There's only a few paces between them now, and the floor is _cold_ , but Carver hesitates. They're going to … something. He isn't really clear on what happens next, and Isabela's sketchy descriptions (and he's pretty sure she flowered it up a bit) only help so much. He remembers one thing, though. “Wait,” he says, and retrieves his belt pouch. Somewhere … there.

Fenris is standing by the bed, with one of those almost unreadable expressions Carver has become so much better at interpreting. This one looks like wariness mixed with curiosity. Maybe. 

Carver holds out his hands, the little bottle Isabela gave him cradled in his palms. He offers it up, ducking his head because he isn't sure he can look Fenris in the eye _right_ now. “Here.”

There's a long moment where Fenris does nothing, and Carver, who is starting to get chilly, thinks maybe he's doing this wrong. Finally, though, Fenris takes the bottle, unstoppers it, sniffs a little, and frowns. He tests some on a fingertip, rubbing it against his thumb, and then looks up, his eyes so dark Carver can barely see the green in them at all. 

Was that right? “Is that ... we need that. Don't we?”

Fenris licks his lips, nods, and climbs up onto the bed. “Yes. Come.”

Carver ends up on his back, half under the covers, with Fenris over him, and he's finally allowed use his hands -- “Not too much,” Fenris warns, though how much is too much he doesn't say, and Carver tries to be cautious but it's hard when all he wants is to pull them both into a clumsy tangle and roll Fenris over and kiss him until they're both crazed with it. He stops minding, though, when Fenris wraps one of each of their hands around both their cocks, and the slide of skin-on-skin-on-skin is unbelievable. 

When Fenris pulls away, kneeling up between Carver's thighs and reaching for Isabela's bottle, Carver tries to relax. This will be fine. Isabela did it and it was _fine_. Weird, and kind of good, but _fine_. 

It's different. Fenris is not so gentle, still careful but more forceful, and he's looking down, watching his hand as he pushes one finger, and then another inside him, and Carver takes very deep breaths and exhales raggedly, and tries not to look like a sodding virgin. It's not too bad. It starts to feel good, even though Fenris is _watching_ , and when Fenris begins stroking him with his other hand, Carver shoves a fist in his mouth to stop himself from making any really embarrassing noises.

“Don't,” Fenris growls, twisting his fingers. “Let me hear you.”

“You bloody pervert,” Carver gasps, rocking his hips up into Fenris' hand. “You're _watching_ and _listening_ , but you're not ... ohhh ... _doing_ anything.”

“Not doing anything?” Fenris stops moving both hands and Carver makes a high-pitched sound of protest because that's not _fair_. He's torn between bucking up or pushing _down_ , but settles for glaring. “Then should I stop, if this is nothing?”

“No, no, please,” and he can hear the whine in his voice and he hates it. He swallows, pushes himself up on his elbows and, oh, Fenris kneeling between his legs with one hand around his cock and the other down _there_ is a hell of a view. He licks his lips and tries not to sound like he's begging. “Please. I just want you to ... I just ... _Fenris_...” No, that sounded like begging. “I want you to ... do it.”

Fenris sort of flickers, and Carver sucks in a breath because it's beautiful, the way the lyrium lights up like starlight, and intimidating because it's a reminder of how easily Fenris could just kill him.

“You want me to take you,” Fenris says, and it's low but there's something fierce in it.

Carver nods. “Yeah...”

Fenris shudders, flickering again, and takes back his hands. “Then, roll over.”

He does. Fenris moves him, a hand guiding his knees forward, pulling his hips up, and he feels so exposed, knowing Fenris is probably _looking_ at him. Carver hugs a pillow up under his chin, and he can feel his heart thudding. Fenris runs a hand down his spine, and makes a sound like a sigh. 

“You have no idea how...” Carver dares a glance back over his shoulder. Fenris is a dark shape against the firelight. “I've wanted this.”

There's pressure against him now, and Carver buries his face in the pillow. “Me too,” he mumbles into the soft fabric and then Fenris starts to push in and there's nothing else to think about but the heavy stretch and burn of what can really only be one thing.

It's ... not what he expected. At first it's just another intrusion, unpleasantly larger than a couple of fingers, and he grits his teeth, trying not to tense. Then … then it's … something else, and his mind turns slowly to mush. 

He braces himself against the bed, every thrust pulling a ragged sound from his throat, and he must have tried to stuff the pillow in his mouth because Fenris is asking him not to, begging to hear him, _begging_ , which is all wrong and somehow perfect. There's one hand on his back and the other snakes its way under him to stroke his cock, and it's not enough right up until it's too much and he breaks like a wave.

He has no idea what he babbles when he comes. Fenris answers with something Carver doesn't understand at all, it might as well be some other _language_ , and shifts, both hands gripping his hips, and the rhythm changes. Carver tries to catch his breath, the blood thumping in his head making everything seem thick and distant and surreal. Fenris is still _inside_ him, still _moving_ , and it feels strange. It's faster now, harder, and then Fenris makes a deep, broken sound, and again, and there's a flash of light over Carver's shoulder.

Maker. _I wish I could have seen that_.

Now it's just breath and sweat. Carver tries to push himself up off the bed but all his joints are like honey. “Mmmph.” _That_ was expressive.

Fenris sighs, and there's a kiss pressed between Carver's shoulderblades, a wet forehead nestled on his back, two hands running down his ribs, just stroking him and almost-but-not-quite ticklish. It's nice. 

Less nice is the part where they disentangle themselves, and Fenris fetches him a damp cloth. _That_ bit's messy. But, that's okay, it's over soon enough.

Fenris climbs into the bed, pulls the blankets up to his nose, and Carver can feel those huge elf eyes just staring at him. Carver can't quite look at him, just looks at the ceiling, at the _hole_ in the ceiling and the stars, and the sky. He feels different. Somehow. More different than he'd expected.

“That was ... good.”

Fenris shifts restlessly under the blanket. “Yes.”

“I ... we could,” and Carver hasn't quite learned his lesson about this, so he ploughs ahead recklessly. “Do that again.”

Fenris snorts. “Now?”

“Not _now_. Maker. I think I'd break something,” and he rolls onto his chest, eyeing Fenris over the rise of the pillow.

“Another time. Yes.” Fenris is still watching him, eyes half-lidded now.

It's been a long day. Fighting with his brother. Fighting Tevinter mages. Finding Fenris. All of _this_. Carver closes his eyes, and he can't help the dumb smile he can feel spreading across his face like a sunrise. He's warm and happy, and under the blankets he gropes around until he finds an arm that isn't his to latch onto. “Fenris,” he mumbles into the pillow.

“Mmmm?”

“I really like you,” he mumbles. Fenris shivers and Carver squeezes him gently. “I really, _really_ like you. I don't think …. I don't think I've ever liked anyone so much.”

Maybe Fenris says something after that, but Carver doesn't hear it because he's finally, exhaustedly asleep.


	19. Chapter 19

When he opens his eyes he blinks because -- okay, this isn't his bed. This is Fenris' bed. He is in Fenris' bedroom. Again. Only this time...

 _We did that. We actually did that._ I _did that. Me._

Fenris is for some reason not in his bed. Carver blinks a bit and sits up a little. The room is dim, lit only by the dying fire in the grate. From the cloudy stars winking sleepily through the hole in the roof it must be somewhere in the middle of the night, or at least not yet dawn. Fenris is sitting in a chair by the hearth, a pale shape backlit by the last of the coals. He shifts, and Carver sees the silhouette of a bottle as it's raised, drunk from, and lowered again.

He sits up all the way and shivers, feeling the chill now that the fire has died down and he isn't distracted by, uh, other things. Fenris is shirtless, though he's pulled on his leggings, and Carver wonders if maybe the wine is keeping him warm. “Aren't you cold?” Carver asks.

Fenris hunches a little. “No.”

Carver leans forward and winces. Yeah, they actually _did_ that. He aches a bit, and it isn't bad. It's sort of good, proof that something happened, that it really _did_ and he gets to carry that reminder with him in a way that just feeling sticky and lethargic doesn't quite cover. 

It's a pity that Fenris said 'no' because Carver had been intending to invite him to come back to bed, to bring the bottle if he liked, and then to suggest he ought to strip off again, if for no reason other than so Carver could feel the whole of his skin bare under the covers. Instead, he has to come up with something else to say. Uh. 

“Can't sleep?”

There's a hard exhalation of breath, and the pale shape that is Fenris curls in on itself, around the bottle, and Carver knows with a horrible certainty that something is _wrong_. 

“No.” 

Did he do something? He replays the events of the evening over in his mind and, no, he doesn't know, and fuck, and fucking _fuck_ , he has nothing to work with, here, but he must have done _something_. Maybe he wasn't supposed to fall asleep. Maybe Fenris wants his bed to himself. Maybe Carver has outstayed his welcome.

When Fenris speaks his voice cracks, which is all kinds of wrong. “This was a mistake.”

Carver can feel the shame riding up his veins, spilling red and obvious across his skin because, of course, it was terrible, _he_ was terrible, and now Fenris regrets it and, oh, that's worse than anything.

For a long moment Carver can't move, and then he shoves back the covers, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His clothes are here somewhere. They need to be on him. Where the bloody hell are they? 

“Sorry to disappoint,” he mutters, not looking at the elf because he can't. 

There's movement in the corner of his eye and Carver turns away from it, finding his smalls and clambering into them, even though his body isn't quite ready to obey him. He's clumsy. _This is bullshit._ His trousers aren't far away and he yanks them on, momentarily confused because one leg is inside out and, _Maker's bleeding arse!_ he looks like an idiot.

“It's not that. You ...” Fenris takes a deep breath. Without looking Carver knows the elf is up now, standing in the middle of the room. “You didn't ... it was fine.”

 _Oh, well, that's just bloody dandy._ “Well, thanks.”

“No, it was--”

Carver can't bear to hear the rest. “I don't care,” he cuts in, and there, trousers are on. Now his shirt. “I really _don't_ care.”

Fenris is silent and Carver finishes dressing, and then doesn't know what to do. He _wants_ to say something, something cutting, something awful, and while usually these things just fall out of his mouth by accident when he doesn't mean them, now that he wants it they just won't come.

He turns, finally, and Fenris is just _standing_ there, and the expression on his face is awful. He looks upset. It makes no sense. “What?” Carver knows he sounds angry, but that's okay, it's honest. “Do you have something to say to me?”

“I'm sorry.” Fenris holds up a hand, clenches it, lets it go. “I thought we could … make each other happy.”

“And you're _not_.” Carver can feel his face twist, and his chest hurts so much it's like he's choking. Fenris looks down at the floor, off to one side, and it's weird because it's as though he can't meet Carver's eye, while Carver can't look _away_ from him. “Maker, Fenris, you started this! You … you _kissed_ me! I would never--” and he grits his teeth, trying to say nothing and say _something_ at the same time. “Don't worry. I won't bother you again.”

Fenris' head snaps up. “This didn't mean--”

 _Anything_. He doesn't have to finish the sentence. Carver knows, and he can't stop himself. “It meant something to _me_!” 

It's too loud, and echoes back relentlessly. Fenris' eyes go wide, his mouth gaping, almost as though Carver hit him. 

Shit. Carver drags a hand over his face. This is ... shit. “You're right,” he growls. “This _was_ a mistake. I was a _fool_ to think.... But I guess that doesn't surprise _anyone_.”

“Hawke,” Fenris says, holding out a hand, but Carver is gone, out the door and down the stairs and into the dark and there's nowhere to go, nowhere that doesn't feel like somewhere he's ruined, something sour and foul and broken.

The Hanged Man is open (Carver isn't sure it ever closes) but he can't see anyone he knows there. That suits him just fine, and he drinks a stupid amount of terrible rotgut, ignoring the occasional interloper who tries to share his table. 

There's nowhere to go. Gamlen's house is not home. It's the middle of the night. He has no idea where Isabela is, Varric's door is shut, Sebastian's probably locked up in the Chantry, for all the good _he_ could do, and...

Well. Actually, that's a really _good_ idea.

The spirits and his brain come up with a terrible plan, and it really is terrible, he knows, but part of him is screaming that he has to do _something_ and of all the somethings he can come up with, this something is the least stupid.

Some time later he is banging on a door, and Maker, why doesn't it open? Then it does, and there she is, looking sleepy and startled. “Carver? What's wrong? Did something happen?”

Carver leans on the doorframe, clutching the thing he has dragged with him all the way from the docks, which was a bloody stupid place to go alone and drunk and angry. “Got you a bath,” he says, and Merrill's eyes go so wide it's a little ridiculous.

“Where in Thedas did you get a _bath_ in the middle of the night?” 

“Stole it,” he says. She blinks at him, but holds the door open and lets him haul it inside. It's not much of a bath, really, just a sawn-off half of a large barrel, but she's little, and he's pretty sure she can fit in it with room to spare.

“Thankyou,” she says, though she doesn't sound sure. She inspects the bath, hands lighting on the edges of it like pale moths, skittering away to fold behind her back as she looks him over solemnly.

“D'you _want_ a bath?” he asks, kneeling on the floor. The buzz is starting to wear off now. He has a bottle of something alcoholic and he takes a pull from it, to blunt the edge of whatever he'd been feeling that got him drunk in the first place. _Don't think about that. Think about this._ “I'll fetch water if you do. Can't heat it, but you can just,” and he makes a clumsy gesture that he thinks is obvious enough. “With magic. Right?”

“Now?” She twists, looking uncertain.

“Yeah, now.” Carver sets the booze down on the floor and staggers to his feet. “Got a bucket?”

She does; she hands it to him, her face grave, and lets him fill the bath from the pump outside. It takes a while, and when he's done he sinks onto the floor, reaching for the bottle again and taking a long gulp.

She's standing there, in a thin shift with a blanket pulled around her shoulders, looking at the tub of water and frowning. “Go on,” he says, gesturing with the bottle. And then he thinks, and, oh right. “I won't look,” he says.

She laughs, a bright peal of bells, and smiles at him for the first time all night. “It doesn't matter if you do,” she says, and bends down to trail her fingers in the water. It takes a moment, and then the steam rises up, and Carver thinks it must be handy to have magic at your fingertips, not to have to do things the hard way all the time.

She goes to a shelf and takes down a washcloth and a ragged towel and a small packet he recognises from the day that she (and _Fenris_ ) bought soap, and sets them down next to the bath. Then she unwraps her blanket, and pulls her shift off over her head in one smooth, unselfconscious motion that stops Carver's breath in his throat.

She's _naked_. He drags his gaze down to the floor, but the image is still in his head, all that pale skin and those slight, dainty curves. He's not going to forget _that_ any time soon.

 _I should have done this weeks ago_ , he thinks, and his face is making a shape that might be mistaken for a smile but it hurts too much to be that.

There's a sloshing of water, and Merrill makes a contented noise, a long drawn out, “Ohhhh,” and then Carver really does smile because she likes this, even though he woke her in the night and demanded she have a bath and -- actually, what the hell was he thinking?

He sneaks a look at her, which is stupid given that he's already seen pretty much _everything_ , even down to the small tangle of dark hair between her thighs, but from here, on the floor, all he can see is the tops of her shoulders and her face, rosy from the heat of the water, smiling at him through the steam. “Thankyou,” she says, and this time she seems to mean it. “This is really quite lovely.”

“Good,” he says, sprawling on the floor.

She hums. He wonders if that's an elf thing, if all elves hum to themselves, and thinking about 'things that elves might do' brings a whole weight of thoughts down on him that he doesn't want to deal with. What the hell is he doing? What the hell has he _done_? What would his father say -- and that summons a whole new wave of guilt and shame and self-pity because his father didn't expect much of him but he probably expected more than _this_.

“Oh, Carver. What's wrong?”

He's curled up around his bottle now, arms wrapped around his knees, and Merrill is stroking his hair with wet fingers, her skin pink and moist. He turns his face into his shoulder and he isn't crying. There's nothing to cry about. But the shudders won't stop and every time she raises her hand and lets it fall back on his head he feels himself shake under her touch.

“Shhhhhhh,” she whispers, leaning over the edge of the bath. “It's all right.”

“It's not bloody all right,” he tells her. “It's all kinds of 'not all right'.”

“Well, maybe not. When things are all right we don't usually steal baths for our friends, do we? I'm almost certain that's not something anyone does normally. Not even humans.”

Carver tries to piece himself together, only he doesn't know where to start. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It's a lovely bath.” She runs her hand down the outside curve of his ear, and he sighs. The room smells of herbs, and a little bit like cheese. It's ... nice. 

“Shall I tell you a story?”

He nods, miserable and empty. “Please.”

It's a long story about halla running in the woods and being caught and _dying_ , and a lot of it doesn't make any sense, but her voice is sweet and gentle, and she reaches over every now and then to touch his hair, tugging it a little to emphasise a point. He finishes the bottle, and his stomach protests because, urgh, the stuff is rough, but it cushions him against the things he doesn't want to think about, all the way to Merrill climbing out of the bath, towelling herself off and getting back into her shift.

“Can I stay here?” he asks. It must be nearly dawn, now, but he doesn't want to go home. “I'll sleep on the floor, I don't mind.”

She bends to put the blanket around his shoulders, snugging it tight, and brushes her fingers against his brow. “You poor thing. It needn't be so hard, you know.” Then she smiles. “Make yourself comfortable. I'm sorry I don't have another bed. And mine's too small for you, so...” When he's curled up on the floor she traces his eyebrow with one slim finger. “Sleep, da'len.”

It doesn't feel like any magic he's known before, but he tumbles into darkness, and dreams.


	20. Chapter 20

He’s running. There’s a field. The grass is long and feathery, the sky washed in watercolour blues and he knows where he is. This is Ferelden.

He’s running hand-in-hand with Bethany. They’re only small, the dry grass whipping his bare knees. When he runs, she runs. When he stops, she stops. He stoops to pick up an acorn; she stoops, hand going out to touch his fingers.

Her hair tumbles about her face in thick, dark waves, but he doesn’t need to see. It’s Bethany. He shows her the acorn and it tips back and forth between their hands. The acorn is really two acorns, grown into each other to make one. 

“Carver?”

Merrill is taller than him, but it doesn’t seem strange. She’s a grown-up, so very grown-up. She shouldn’t be here. “Why are you here?”

“What have you got there?” she asks. He trots over, Bethany at his heels, and shows her the acorn. “Oh, I see.” She frowns and gives it back to him.

“Is this your sister?”

“Yes.” He’s so proud she’s his sister. She’s the best sister in the world, and all his. His Bethy. Always his.

Merrill is thin, wavery, not really real, but it doesn’t seem strange. She holds out a hand (thin, wavery) and beckons to him. “Come with me, Carver.”

He takes a step forward; Bethany takes a step forward. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere lo-ver-ly,” Merrill promises, smiling a wavery smile. “But you’ll have to let go of _her_ hand, and take mine.”

Carver shakes his head. “We can’t,” he says, and he shows her where they are grown together, like acorns, their hands fused into one. The way it should be. “We’ll be together for always.”

Merrill makes a shocked sound, and skims away, like mists blown by the wind. It isn’t strange.

Carver tugs at Bethany, and they run.

Now he’s bigger, big enough to be bent over a chair and switched, and his thighs sting like the time he fell in the ant hill, only worse because his father is angry with him.

“I’m disappointed in you,” Father says, and Carver can’t remember what he did, only the shame. “Apologise to your brother.”

Father looms over him, and he’s so tall his head crowds against the ceiling.

“No!”

“Do as you’re told, Carver.”

“NO!”

And he runs. He runs, and no-one comes after him, but he runs and runs. They’ll switch him again when he goes back, he _knows_. So he’ll never go back, never, ever, ever...

...except...

He stops. He’s at the top of a hill, and he can see their house, down in the valley, far enough from the road that the Templars won’t come this time, father said.

Not for father, not for Garrett. And now, not for Bethany.

“You do a lot of running, Carver,” Merrill says, setting down on the hillcrest. “What are you running from?”

“Bethany’s a mage,” he says, because it’s okay for Merrill to know, because _she’s_ a mage and she won’t tell anyone. “Bethany and Garrett and ... they don’t need me.”

“Don’t be silly! You’re very useful.”

He picks up a branch and whacks the ground with it. “No. Nobody needs me.”

“Oh, maybe you should go eat _worms_ then,” Merrill says. It doesn’t seem strange, but he ignores her anyway.

He wanders down to the treeline, whacking trees with his branch as he goes, Merrill trailing behind him like a ghost.

And then he’s outside the barn. He knows what’s in there, he knows it, but he has to look. He leans around the doorframe, peeking in. He shouldn’t. He does.

“Carver?”

The girl in the straw has her skirts thrown back around her hips, dark hair tumbled against the hay. He can’t see her face and for a moment ... for a moment he thinks ... and then he knows it isn’t, of course not, how could he be so _disgusting_. It’s that pretty novice from the Chantry, and Garrett has her stockinged legs around his waist and his face in her blouse and Carver knows he shouldn’t be watching but he can't look away. All he can hear is breathing and a heartbeat that might be his own.

“Come away from there.”

And Merrill. He doesn’t look at her. “Shhh.”

Merrill flutters about like a moth. “You shouldn’t look at that.”

Now Garrett has a beard, and the body in the straw is all red-gold hair and fair skin and _feathers_. Carver leans his head against the doorframe, watching. No more stockings, just lean legs and bony ankles and everywhere, that red-gold hair.

“Oh, Carver.”

But now Garrett isn’t Garrett, he’s slighter and darker and ... no. Carver doesn’t want to see it. “No!”

He turns and it’s dark. Except. Against the wall, where the eyes are.

“No,” he whispers. He knows what this is, and his knees turn to water. “Don’t.”

“Carver.”

“No.”

He steps back but the air is like treacle, or sponge, and he can’t go any further as it thickens around him and holds him there. 

“ _Car_ ver,” and that voice, he knows it, only it’s different, buzzing around the edges like something, something, he doesn’t know what. It tastes like blood. Or is there blood in his mouth?

“Stay away from me.” His voice is too quiet. He wants to shout but he knows it’s useless.

The shadows shift and something huge, something organic, seeps toward him. The floor is wet and _writhing_ , but it’s not floor, is it? It’s rubbery, taut and black, and he can’t get a proper footing.

“Carver, don’t be afraid.” The eyes are red. They’re getting bigger, only ... only he knows they aren’t, they’re just coming _closer_.

“Shut up!”

There’s teeth in there somewhere, he can hear them, he can _feel_ them on his skin, cutting him and bleeding him and drinking his blood.

“No,” he moans, "please...”

“Come here. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

Carver shakes his head, tearing at the cold thick shadows holding him back. He crawls, digging at the heavy air to escape. “You’re such a _liar_. ”

“I love you, Carver.” 

“No.”

Something wraps around his ankle. “I need you.”

“No!”

It pulls; he slides. “I’ll always need you.”

“NO!”

“Carver!” Merrill is reaching for him. “This isn’t your brother! Just ... let go!”

It’s too late. The monster pulls him under and he is devoured, again and again.

And it’s still dark.

“Is this the best you can do?”

He winces. “I’m s-sorry.”

“I expected more of you.”

He’s on his knees. “I ... tried.”

“You didn’t try hard enough.”

“I can’t,” he says, and his hands are made of dust, crumbling on the floor. “I can’t do this.”

“Or are you simply not good enough?”

“No...”

“You disappoint me.”

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“You always disappoint me.”

“I ... I’m sorry.”

“Stop it!” Merrill is rippling like a flag in the wind. She’s angry. He should be afraid but he’s too heavy, too tired, too run down to care. “Carver! Your father loved you!”

“You don’t know that.”

“I _do_! I can see it! I can’t ... oh, if only I were a Somniari I could _show_ you, but,” and she runs ghostly hands over his face. It’s like being brushed with cobwebs. “You have to _believe_ me.”

He shakes his head, walks away, stops. There’s something on a stand, something with a sheet over it, and as he pulls the cover away he knows he shouldn’t.

The mirror is framed with leaves, brass ones, and flowers and things like curling locks of hair. It’s dark in there, but he catches a glimpse of a hidden smile, the flex of long, tan-and-silver fingers, white hair. He can hear laughter. He can see two people kissing, and one of them is himself. He watches, and he’s so heavy now he might as well be stone.

“It isn’t important,” he sighs.

“You’ve kept it,” Merrill says. He can feel her behind him, thin and indistinct. “It must mean something.”

“I thought it did.” He watches. The kissing turns into something else. “Don’t look,” he says, touching the glass. It should be cold but it’s just ... nothing. “I don’t want you to see this.”

“It’s all right, Carver. It’s okay for it to be important.”

“No. It isn’t,” he tells her, and smashes it.

The rain isn’t cold, and it isn’t even wet. It just falls. It’s like rain made of paper. It’s not strange, though, and he holds out a hand to catch a handful of it, tipping the papery drops through his fingers.

It’s meeting up in rivulets and drifts all down the hillside, gathering in the valleys between the dunes. The sea, from here, looks wet at least, a great big wet thing at the bottom of the cliffs. He’s afraid of falling for a moment, but then remembers that it’s too far away.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Merrill shimmers. “I’m only trying to help.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

She tries to touch him. It makes his ears buzz. “You’re so unhappy, da’len.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t feel anything.”

“You feel _so much_.”

“I don’t want to.” He looks at her. She’s hard to look at, and seems to come apart under his scrutiny. “Why are you here?”

“I told you--”

“You shouldn’t be here.” He reaches for her and she slips through his fingers.

He’s making love to Isabela. It’s warm and soft, and she laughs and runs her hands through his hair. “Puppy,” she says.

“Don’t say that _now_ ,” he sighs, and she just laughs again, rolling him over and sitting up.

“Why don’t you join us?” she says, holding out her hand.

Merrill flutters back. “Oh, _Carver_. You’re doing this on purpose.”

Isabela arches, and licks her lips. “Come on, kitten. You’ll _love_ it.”

Merrill huffs. “Be like that, then.” She vanishes.

Carver forgets almost immediately, tangled in Isabela’s legs. Her smile is like the ocean.

And then he wakes up.


	21. Chapter 21

“... was just a tiny little peek.”

Ow. The world has crawled into his skull and is dancing on the inside surface. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, so as not to upset them, and waits for the thumping to stop.

“Oh, _kitten_.”

“I was being _help_ ful!”

Something has died in his mouth. And filled it with sand. Probably before it died. Urgh, thinking hurts, but it _keeps happening_.

“I don't know that he'd agree. But I know you _meant_ well.”

He wishes they would just shut up, and his face is stuck to his arm, and everything is sticky and horrible. “Wuurgh.”

“Morning, sunshine.” He opens one eye just enough to see Isabela's boot land just in front of his face. “My, my, we did have a fun night, didn't we?”

He could probably see up her shirt-tails if he rolled over. He tries this and, yeah, he can see all the way up the inside of her thighs, but the price for that is the world lurching and trying to take his stomach with it. “Nnngh,” he grunts, and blinks blearily at her, or rather, at her thigh.

She chuckles and squats down next to him, ruining his view. “You poor duckling. Let's get some water in you, eh?”

She props him up, much to his dismay, and Merrill hands her a mug, and she makes him drink it. Merrill keeps wringing her hands, pacing restlessly, and what _is_ it with elves and not being able to keep still?

His brain helpfully doesn't let him think about that too much.

Isabela is wearing a sling, and he remembers. “Your arm.”

She shrugs. “Still broken. Pity your brother took Ser Healing Hands with him, otherwise I'd have this fixed by now.”

His brain helpfully doesn't let him think about that too much either. “I looked for you at the Hanged Man. You weren't there.”

“No.” She smiles cheekily. “I was in Sebastian's bed.”

That doesn't make any sense. Or, it makes horrible sense but he doesn't believe it. “You … with that holy twat?”

She arches an eyebrow, and then wrinkles her nose. “He slept on the floor. Ever the gentleman. I would have loved to meet him back in his bad old days. He's _such_ a pretty view from the back.”

He's relieved, though why that is he doesn't know. “Good.”

She's looking at him, thoughtfully, and then she twists around. “Kitten? Would you fetch something from my room for me?” And she rattles off a description and directions before Merrill can even agree or disagree, though she does agree as soon as Isabela mentions that the something will help Carver's hangover.

When she's gone, Isabela refills his water, and sits down cross-legged on the floor.

“All right, puppy. What happened?”

He stares at his boots, hugging the blanket around his shoulders. “Nothing.” He's not thinking about it, so it might as well have been nothing, right?

“Nothing, eh?” Isabela leans over and knocks her knuckles against the side of the bath that's sitting, still full of water, in the middle of the room. “And you look like you tried to drink the whole bar. Over nothing.”

Carver doesn't say anything. He can't. There aren't any words for this. He can't even think about it.

“All right. I'll guess. So.” And she settles back, leaning against the bath, tilting her head to look up at the ceiling. “You found Fenris, brooding manfully in his dark and dreary mansion. All alone, wanting nothing more or less than to be loved. He'd been drinking, and when you came to him he stumbled gratefully into your arms, covering your face in wine-flavoured kisses, and then it was all roaming hands and the press of sweet male flesh. You swept him up in your magnificent arms and bore him to the bed, quieting his fears with gentle caresses and kissing away his tears. And _then_ \--”

“It wasn't like that,” Carver snaps, and squeezes his eyes shut because it was so very, very not like that, and he can still see it, every bit of it, and his mouth still feels tender where Fenris-- 

No. He opens his eyes. _No._

Isabela is watching him. She frowns. “Then how was it?”

He pulls in a breath and lets it go, and it doesn't help. If only she wouldn't keep asking. It's threatening to come out and if he lets it then he doesn't know if he can put it all back again. He covers his face with both hands and just holds on to himself because there's no-one else to do it. 

It's better when he can't see her. Maybe. Maybe it won't matter, so long as he can't see her. 

“He said it was a mistake,” he says, and that's as far as he can go.

“Oooh,” and she makes a clicking noise with her tongue. “That's no good, pup.”

It's almost funny. “You reckon?”

“What happened next?”

“I left.” He grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes and then makes fists and rests his forehead on them. “Then I got drunk.”

“Mmmm, spectacularly so.” She's quiet for a moment and then leans a little against his shoulder. “You know what _I_ would do, if someone said something like that to me?”

“No-one would ever say anything like that to you,” he tells her, and he means it. Who could ever regret being with her?

“Oh, they could. They _have_ said far worse, in fact. But what I would do is just smile, or laugh, and say something like, 'Yes, I rather thought it was going to be _better_.' And then I'd steal something of theirs and sell it and buy myself something shiny.”

He turns, opens his eyes to look at her, and she's so beautiful he can hardly stand it. She smiles and runs a fingertip under his chin. Stubble. He needs to shave. Urgh.

“The trick is not to let them know they can hurt you,” she says with the wisdom of a sage, and if only, if only she wanted him he'd go anywhere with her, do anything for her, and be happy. Except.

“Isabela,” he says slowly. “When you said you could make a pirate out of me, that was … just flirting, wasn't it?”

She grins. “Not _entirely_. Why? Thinking of a change of career?”

“When you get your ship,” he says, and he says it carefully because he's not sure his heart can take it if she makes fun of him, “can I come with you?”

Her face lights up like a candle. “Oh! Yes! I'll show you the world, so much bigger and brighter than boring old Kirkwall. I'll show you Antiva! We'll drink and gamble and tumble about in the streets with gorgeous, dangerous Crows, and fight duels in the moonlight. I'll show you how to dance with knives, and you can flex your muscles and romp naked through the whorehouses. If anyone gets in our way, we'll gut them like fish. It will be _such_ fun.”

She doesn't mean it, he's sure, but for a moment he lets himself believe her, just for now because it sounds wonderful.

“You'll need a scar, though,” she says, and runs her thumb across his cheekbone. “I'll have to cut you, puppy. Don't worry, I'll make sure you keep your eye.”

He snorts, starts to say that's not bloody likely, and then the door opens, and it's Merrill. “Ohhh,” she says, and then looks at the floor. “I should have knocked. Should I have knocked? It's my house. Do you knock at your own door? I don't know. This is the first door I've ever had.”

“Come on in, kitten,” Isabela says, and she gets up, ruffles Carver's hair (which makes his head ache again) and takes the leather pouch Merrill is holding and starts doing something complicated with spoons.

Eventually , she presents him with a mug of _something_ , and grins. “It's got a funny taste and a real _texture_ , but you'll feel much better. Promise.”

There's things floating in the liquid, little black things, and when he takes a sip the things turn out to be sort of slimy, or furry, and they stick in his throat. “Urgh. It's salty.”

“And good for you.”

“It tastes like … something.” He takes another mouthful, swallows it, makes a face. “It reminds me of something.”

“Doesn't it just?” She's grinning wickedly, and that should bother him, but he's not really feeling up to arguing with her.

He finishes it off and she lets him have another mug of water. He washes his face and hands in the left-over bath water, which is actually a lot cleaner than some water he's _drunk_ before, and starts to feel a bit more human. “I should go home.”

“What's the rush?” Isabela is stroking Merrill's hair, and they're both watching him all sort of attentive, as if they think he's going to do something stupid.

“My brother,” he says, and then stops. Oh. Oh _no_. “Shit. Shit! Garrett said … Bartrand … they were going to start for the Deep Roads today.”

“Puppy, they're already _gone_ ,” Isabela says gently. “Your brother threw a fit over you, and bullied Aveline into going instead. I told you, he took Sparkles with him too, otherwise,” and she gestures at her broken arm.

Carver groans, and covers his mouth. “He's going to _kill_ me.”

“Oh, he'll be gone for days. Weeks, maybe. You needn't worry about it until it happens.” Isabela stretches, arching her back, and Merrill colours and looks away. “Meanwhile, I'm going to see if there's a doctor in Kirkwall I can pay to take a look at this arm. Our Sebastian did an all right job, but I'd rather the whole thing didn't rot off.”

And then it's just him and Merrill, who keeps picking things up and moving them pointlessly. 

He owes her an apology. “Thanks for everything,” he says, and then, “Sorry for … everything.”

“You're all right,” she says, and she smiles shyly at him. “I don't mind, honestly. I … no-one's ever come to me to feel safe before. It's nice to think I could make someone feel safe.”

He supposes that _is_ what happened.

“Ca-arver,” she says tentatively, coming over and sitting down on the floor, and he feels guilty because everyone's been sitting on the floor because of _him_. She plucks at her clothes, wrings her hands a little, and eyes him cautiously. “You know … your brother isn't a monster. He wouldn't really _kill_ you.”

“He set my hair on fire once,” Carver tells her. They were little, Garrett was angry, he hadn't meant to. Carver can still remember his _face_ , so horrified, and their father had been so gentle with him -- that's what Carver remembers most, how their father had patted Garrett's back and said it was an accident, and that Garrett would just have to learn to control his temper. It was their mother who had rubbed lotion on Carver's head, and fussed over him, and dried his tears with her apron. He's pretty sure his parents fought over it, in that quiet, no-one-raises-their-voice way they had. So calm. So reasonable. And Garrett got away with it.

Merrill looks uncertain. “Oh. Well. Anyway, he's _not_ a monster. And he would never hurt you. He loves you. Truly.”

“He's got a funny way of showing it,” Carver mutters, and his head aches still, though he does feel less like a kite in a high wind, and maybe it's coincidence or maybe there was something to Isabela's weird slimy potion.

“People can be … odd, in the way they show affection,” Merrill says carefully. “Sometimes they do things that don't seem very, well, obvious. Or sensible. But they do mean it, all the same. Just try to understand him, just a little. He's been through so much.”

“And I haven't?” Carver bristles. “I was at Ostagar, you know. And he wasn't. I lost _friends_ at Ostagar, and no-one even … no-one ever thinks about _me_. No-one ever tries to understand _me_.”

“We do try,” Merrill says, patting him tentatively on the boot. “ _I_ try.”

She's sweet. He starts to tell her that, but then he sees the fresh cut on the heel of her hand. It's short, and clotted over, but he _knows_ what that means. “I wish you wouldn't,” he says, and he doesn't reach over and take her hand, but he almost does.

She flinches. “Don't worry about me,” and it's so defensive it's like she _knows_ she shouldn't have done whatever she did.

He lets it go. What does it even matter, anyway?


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some references to non-con. Nothing graphic or really on screen, but there are suggestions.

It happens after a couple of weeks of moping around the Hanged Man with nothing much to do. Carver has earned a little money here and there; it's nothing exciting, just dumb muscle work where he folds his arms and glowers at people while other people make threats. Meeran throws him a bone or two, pick up stuff and guarding stuff and generally being bored and alert at the same time. It's dull. He feels dull. He gives most of the money to his mother and blows the rest on piss-ale and dice.

And then, one boring evening, it happens. 

The bloke is smaller than him, fair-haired and brown-eyed, and he has an earring that makes him look like a tosser, but his smile is inviting and the bones under his tanned skin are fine and sharp. He offers to buy Carver a drink. Carver lets him. They talk about nothing, going around in circles, and by now he's played this game with Isabela enough to feel a little more confident about taking innuendo and running with it.

The stranger (Carver never does catch his name) puts a hand on his knee and asks if he's interested in finding out what the alley behind the Hanged Man looks like. He figures that is exactly how it sounds.

And why not?

Halfway down the alley, Carver decides that this was probably a bad idea. “Uh,” he says, stopping. “Maybe I...”

“Maybe what?” The man leans against the wall, thumbs tucked in his belt, and grins. “Let's have a little fun.”

Carver swallows. This is … not good. “I don't think I want to do this.”

“Don't tell me you're shy. Come _on_ , big guy.”

“If he doesn't want to, maybe you just need to be more convincing.” _That_ , and the shadow moving in behind him makes Carver's mind up. This is a _bad_ idea. Very bad.

The blond with the earring shakes his head. “I thought we agreed you could wait until I was _finished_ ,” he says, and he sounds irritated. Carver suddenly doesn't like him.

The newcomer is bigger, and Carver takes a step away from him, twisting just enough to keep them both in sight. “You two really didn't think this through,” he says gruffly. There's only two of them, and he's not particularly worried, even though his sword is under Isabela's chair right now. Neither of _them_ have swords. He's been in fistfights before. Not a problem.

Which is when the bigger one pulls out a knife. “Yeah?”

Carver knows enough about knives to know the difference between someone who wants you to be scared of them and someone who is actually dangerous. Dangerous people don't _show_ you the knife, they just up and knife you. This bastard? Trying to be scary.

“Listen,” he says, and there's a nice amount of scorn in that. Sometimes it comes easily. “How about you two just sod off back to your sewer and suck each other's dicks, and we call it even? Otherwise,” and he cracks his knuckles, because the guy with the knife isn't the only one who can try to look scary, “I'm gunna have to break both your faces.”

The one with the knife laughs, and Carver never gets to find out what he was going to say to that because the alleyway lights up and then there's the sickening sound of a fist being punched through flesh and bone.

The guy hits the ground, and Fenris kicks his corpse over, still glowing and radiating fury. “What are you _doing_?” he demands, and Carver takes a step back, and then, deliberately, takes it forward again.

“What do you _mean_? I was … what the hell are _you_ doing?”

“Holy shit!” The blond by the wall is gaping at them both, or maybe just at Fenris. “Maker's holy _shit_! What _are_ you?”

Fenris growls and stalks across the alley. “I am justice,” he hisses, and he does the fisting thing. Again.

“What the hell, Fenris?” Carver bunches his hands up into knots but doesn't know what to do with them. 

“No. You.” Fenris is _still_ glowing. He holds up a bloody gauntlet, and the stink of fresh blood is thick and stomach-turning. “What were you thinking?”

Well, actually he'd been changing his mind, but that's not the point. “I could have taken them.”

“They could have taken _you_ ,” Fenris growls, and his face twists in rage.

“I can take care of myself!”

“Evidently!”

Carver can't believe they're doing this. Fenris looks like he's going to murder him and he is himself so angry he can barely think. “Stop bloody _glowing_ at me!”

Fenris jerks, and takes a deep breath. The markings subside, and Carver finds himself blinking in the darkness. The darkness. That he is in. With Fenris. Alone. For the first time in ages.

He shivers. This is awkward. They haven't seen each other since the night he slept on Merrill's floor. He doesn't know what to say. What could he say, now? He said everything already. 

Except, he has to say something. 

“It's none of your business what I do.” He can't see Fenris' face in the dark, only the afterburn of lyrium inside his eyes, and that makes it easier, somehow. “You can't just kill people for … whatever.”

“I heard them,” Fenris says, quiet and tense. “I know what they were intending. They deserved to die.”

This, Carver thinks, is stupid. He feels foolish and angry and part of him is quivering because they are _talking_ and he has wanted to see Fenris so badly, and wanted nothing to do with him ever again, and the two things have warred in him every damn day until they've made him feel physically ill. 

And now? They're in an alley with bodies bleeding at their feet, and Fenris just walked in and did that _thing_ and is yelling at him and it's too much.

“What do you want from me?”

Fenris grunts. “I do not … what do you mean?”

“Why are you here?” Carver opens his arms to take in the whole of the alley and the carnage. “What do you want? Because you didn't want what you got last time! What do you want _now_?”

Fenris makes an angry noise and leans aggressively forward. “Forgive me for being concerned for your safety,” he snarls, and that's just bloody _it_.

“Don't be! I don't need you!” and Carver stalks down the alley and back into the tavern. He has a drink, and kicks the bar, and gets his sword from under Isabela's chair, (she's flirting so badly with a couple of sailors that she barely waves goodbye) and stalks out again.

Halfway to Gamlen's he stops. This is stupid. He's still so angry. He wishes Fenris had let him just beat the living shit out of those two, and somewhere in his head he thinks maybe, just maybe he should have not yelled at Fenris and instead let the whole thing go. But Fenris started on _him_. It's _Fenris'_ fault, not his.

Urgh, he just wants to hit something.

On impulse, he turns around and starts heading toward the docks. This is Kirkwall. The chances of bumping into someone who deserves having their head kicked in are pretty high.

And then it happens _again_.

“ _Where_ are you going?” Carver can't quite believe it. Fenris is bristling like an angry cat, hands clawed and vicious in front of him. 

“Are you following me?”

“You insist on doing foolish things. Going _alone_.” And then he says something that sounds like swearing only it's no language Carver knows.

“I can go where I like!”

“You will get yourself killed.”

“And what do _you_ care if I do?” 

Fenris bares his teeth. “Do you think that I don't?!”

“Well, _do_ you?!” They're shouting. Someone is going to come, soon, and tell them to piss off, or pick a fight. _Let them_.

Fenris twitches, and Carver can practically see the hackles all up on the back of his neck. “Go home, Hawke.”

Oh, bugger off. “ _Make me_.”

And then Fenris makes a noise that makes no sense, a soft little gasp that goes right to Carver's chest and lodges there. Fenris turns his head away, clutching at nothing with his hands. “Please,” he growls.

“What?”

“ _Please_ ,” he says again, and it sounds like it's hurting him.

Carver wipes a hand over his face and, Maker, his head aches. “Fine. Fine, I'll … fine.”

Fenris just nods.

Carver hesitates, and then turns back. He doesn't go far before he stops. “Are you going to follow me all the way home?”

“...yes.”

He takes a deep breath. “Can't you just … walk with me? Not back there?” 

He waits until the elf has fallen in beside him, and then they walk. It's not fast. It's really sort of slow, and Carver has plenty of time to come up with things to say and then discard them as useless. There's nothing to say, or maybe there's too much, and no way to put it into words. How do you express something like, _I missed you so much that I can't stand to look at you because it makes me forget why I'm angry_? 

Or, _I want to hurt you because being this close to you hurts me nearly as much as being away from you_?

“Hawke.”

It snaps him out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”

“You changed your mind.”

 _You changed_ your _mind_ , he wants to say, but-- “What?”

“Back there. With that … person.”

Oh. “Yeah.”

Fenris is quiet for a little while and then he tosses his head. “I did not know that you had never been with a man before.”

Maker's breath! They're talking about this now. The flush creeps up Carver's face and he's glad of the dark. “Uhh ... right. When did you ... work that out?”

There's a long pause and then, “I didn't.” Another pause. “Isabela told me.”

Better and better. Now people he's been to bed with are talking about him behind his back. Maker, they've both had their fingers in his arse. Oh, hell, they didn't talk about that, did they? Do people talk about that? Yes, actually, he remembers how soldiers talk, and they _definitely_ talk about things like that. 

Great. This is just _perfect_. If his face gets any hotter it'll burn and peel off.

“Did she say anything else? You know, anything else embarrassing?” 

“No.” Fenris stops, and Carver stops, and now he's going to have to _look_ at him. More embarrassment. Only Fenris doesn't look up, just stares at his feet. “I regret not knowing.”

“Why?”

“I would have done things differently.”

Carver doesn't know what to make of that. “Would it still have been a mistake?”

Fenris rocks back on his heels, and the sound he makes is almost like a laugh but so very wrong. “Will you throw those words in my face forever?”

What the hell can he say to that? It sounds easy, like the answer is just yes or no, or _maybe_ , but it makes him feel tangled and messy, and he doesn't know if this is one of those moments where he should do something reckless and stupid or something careful and clever. He _does_ know that one of them is the wrong thing to do, absolutely and irrevocably wrong, but he doesn't know which one and the indecision is maddening.

“Did you mean it?”

Fenris shakes his head. “It is … complicated.”

Carver exhales in disgust and starts walking again. “ _Everything's_ complicated.”

They don't speak again until they reach Gamlen's house. Fenris hangs back, shifting his feet, and Carver stands with his hand on the door for a long moment before giving the elf a hard look. “So, I guess it's all right for you to go all the way back to Hightown _alone_ , but not all right for me.”

Fenris frowns but doesn't say anything.

“I can take care of myself, Fenris.” Carver feels stubborn and mulish, right up until Fenris sighs.

“I know. But I have been concerned about you.”

Carver chews his lip and makes a decision. “All right. Come on, then,” and he pushes the door open, jerking his head for Fenris to follow. Fenris looks startled. “I'm _concerned_ about you,” Carver says, and yeah, it's meant to sound mocking, so that's all right.

He regrets the invitation almost at once because Gamlen is home, and awake, and drunk, and he seems to be in a chatty mood. “Carver! Come and have a drink with your favourite uncle.” His face shifts when he sees Fenris. “Oh, you've brought an _elf_ home. Well, if you want to keep it you'll have to walk it and feed it.”

Fenris stiffens. Carver winces. This is going to be great. Maybe he can bribe Gamlen not to be an ass. Then again, maybe Gamlen doesn't know how not to.

“Uncle, this is Fenris. Fenris, my Uncle Gamlen,” Carver says, embarrassed. Fenris nods, and doesn't sit down until Carver pulls out a chair for him. “So, Uncle. Good day?”

“Actually, yes. I won a bit of money at cards. Leandra disapproves. She never was any fun, your mother, but I think Ferelden made her worse.” He shrugs, pours some wine into a cup, and pushes it across the table to Carver.

Carver passes it to Fenris. Gamlen gives him a narrow look, scowls, and picks up another cup, pouring some wine into that.

“And how was your day? Did you kill anyone?” He grins a stupid grin and pushes the second cup across the table.

Carver shrugs. “Not today, Uncle. But Fenris ripped the hearts out of two men tonight.”

“Maker's arse!” Gamlen gapes at them. “Why would you do something like that?”

Fenris gives him a level look. “They were impolite,” he says. The look on Gamlen's face is priceless.

He excuses himself soon enough after that and takes himself to bed, and then it's just the two of them again. They don't talk, just drink Gamlen's sour wine and glance furtively at each other. At least, that's what Carver figures is happening the third time he catches Fenris looking sidelong at him and then looking away.

Carver spends most of his time staring at the table. Why did he invite Fenris in? Mostly, he thinks, to spite him. So Fenris can walk around all by himself, but he thinks Carver can't? That's bullshit. _So_ much bullshit, and it makes Carver grit his teeth and _hate_ a bit -- but it's not Fenris that he hates. So, who is it? Everyone? Every _thing_? What's even the use of that?

He's feeling maudlin, and Fenris is stealing glances at him and what the bleeding _hell_ is that about?

He finishes his drink. “I'm going to bed,” he says. Then, not missing a beat, he adds, “Are you staying? My brother's bunk is free. And I wouldn't like you walking home alone.”

Fenris is very still. He grips his cup in both hands. “I do not wish to be an inconvenience.”

“You'd be more of an inconvenience if you went,” Carver tells him, which doesn't really make much sense, so he adds, “because then I'd have to follow _you_.” 

There's a long, still moment where neither of them does anything and then--

“I'd like it if you stayed,” Carver says, getting up and opening the door of his room. He doesn't look back. If Fenris wants to go he can go, and Carver won't care, he refuses to, but he _hopes_...

Fenris stands up. He doesn't leave, he just stands there. “Then I will.”

There's a candle; Carver picks it up, puts out the lamp, and lights the way into the room he sleeps in. It's bigger, he thinks, now that his brother is away and Duchess gone with him into the Deep Roads. All Carver's. It's amazing how much he hates it.

He puts the candle down by the door. Garrett's bunk is still made up, and Carver figures he won't care if someone else sleeps in it. Or, at least, what he doesn't know won't kill him.

He gestures. “You can have my brother's bed.” 

If there was a choice, Garrett always took the top bunk when they were children; it mattered back then. Once they were old enough not to care, Garrett had tried to give the top bunk up but Carver wouldn't let him, and so -- Garrett top, Carver bottom, and Carver still gets to kick the underside of Garrett's bed when he snores.

Fenris closes the door. He doesn't say anything.

Carver pulls a clean shirt out of the laundry pile and tosses it to the elf. “You'll need it. We don't all have real mattresses.”

Fenris holds the shirt to his chest and still says nothing.

Carver turns his back and starts to undress. Maybe Fenris is watching. Maybe he isn't. It doesn't matter. They've seen everything, now, and Carver still doesn't know if he cares about that, but he's been nearly naked in front of enough people to make a show of not caring. He strips down to his smallclothes and his undershirt, and then he collapses into his bed, pulling the blankets over and hugging his pillow.

Fenris is still standing there, near the door and the candle, and he exhales, and starts to undress.

Carver watches him over his shoulder, surreptitious, as the peeled-away layers of armour and clothing uncover all that olive skin, and Fenris is just so, so, so … something. Perfect. Beautiful. The revelation of flesh makes him ache, wanting nothing so much as to go over and _taste_ it, running his tongue over the marks lining Fenris' body and, and …

It hurts to think about, so he tries not to. Fenris pulls the shirt over his head. He's swimming in it, a huge sack of nearly-white linen, and it looks incredibly sweet on him. Carver hides his eyes, so Fenris can't see him looking. 

The candle is put out, and then there's the shake of a body climbing the ladder to the upper bunk, and the shudder of it settling into the bed, such as it is.

They lie in the dark, not speaking. Sleep is a far away and useless thing, and Carver, who has at least spent most of his life trying to sleep in a room where he can hear another person breathing, covers his eyes with his arm and tries to not hear the in and out-take of breath above him, nothing like Garrett's and so singular that he would know it anywhere.

He can't sleep. He can't sleep like _this_ , with all that elf so damn near and so far away and wearing his _shirt_. He rolls over, attempts to settle himself, rolls back, rearranges his pillow, and then tries to pretend he's asleep.

Fenris sighs, and it's like a bow drawn against his heartstrings.

“Fenris?”

“Mmm?”

 _Are you awake?_ Except, _of course_ , and Carver wants to kick himself for being so obvious. Instead, he rests his chin on his arm and tries not to sound like an idiot. “What … um.” So far, so terrible. He tries again. “What happened?”

“When?”

Carver takes a deep breath. “When you decided that everything was a … a mistake.”

There's a long pause and he can hear Fenris shift, can hear the groan of wood that means that Fenris is moving, and he wishes he could see what the elf is doing up there.

“This is … a long story.”

Well. “I'm not going anywhere,” he says.

Another long pause, but this time there is no sound. He imagines Fenris lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

“I do not remember anything before I … received the lyrium.” There's a pause. “Nothing. Since then, everything, but before that, nothing. I do not know who I was, where I came from, nothing that happened to me. And yet. There are things that my body remembers.”

It only makes so much sense, and Carver stays quiet, willing Fenris to continue and hopefully elaborate.

“Some of them are … unpleasant.”

That's ominous. Carver recalls Isabela saying the word 'mistreated' and he frowns against his pillow, hugging it up to his chin. “Okay.”

“I cannot be sure of what happened to me, but sometimes … sometimes I feel like … as though something is happening to me again. And I dislike it.” There is a gruff noise from the top bunk, and the wood shakes as though Fenris is turning over. “And that is why...”

And he stops, just like that. Carver sits up, the blanket falling away from him, but he doesn't care about the cold because this … this is fucking important. “That's why you don't want me to ... to anything.”

Fenris makes a grim sound in his throat. “Also, the lyrium is still painful. I do not like being touched, because it reminds me to feel the pain.”

This, at least, makes sense. All that magic stuff under his skin. That _would_ hurt, like a long held burn, and Carver thinks about saying so, but then thinks better of it because it doesn't sound like Fenris is finished.

“It isn't you.”

Okay. Okay, that's … okay. And yet. “But you don't want me-- urgh. You don't want anyone to touch you.”

“No. But--” and he stops again, and Carver can hear him draw in a breath, and let it go, and he's _shaking_ now, wanting to know what Fenris wants to tell him. “Of anyone. I would want it to be you.”

Oh. _Oh_. “But … then …” He takes a deep breath, his hands rising to his face, little fingers curling into the corners of his mouth. “What happened?”

“I started to remember.”

That doesn't sound so bad, and Carver opens his mouth to say that they should probably do _more_ things, if it might make Fenris remember, but the bunk shifts again and he shuts up.

“I remembered some of the things that … they were just flashes, but they were _something_ , and I … I realised that I was using you to,” and he breaks off, exhaling sharply. “I was trying to remove the feeling of these memories, to drive them out. I wanted to be the one who was … doing to you what had been ... I thought I would be all right if I was the one who … but … it was wrong ... Because.”

Carver lifts a hand to the underside of the bunk, spreading his fingers against the splintery wood. “Because?”

“Because. You are not the same.”

Carver doesn't know what to say. This is all far beyond anything he can possibly understand, and he _tries_ , but there's nothing for him here, nothing to explain it, so he bites down on his lip and the pain is insignificant against the ache in his chest when he thinks about Fenris up there, _talking_ and wanting no-one to touch him and hold him against all the feelings he has that Carver doesn't comprehend.

He wants to help. This is something he doesn't know, something he hasn't felt since Bethany died and he knew that he was and would always be alone.

“What do you mean?”

“You are,” and Fenris makes a rough sound, something painful and chesty that makes Carver hurt. “I did not mean to use you like that. Not like a … it is different. And then, I realised that I had been mistaken.”

“About what?”

The bunk shudders, and Carver has no idea what is happening up there. “I thought that you had been … that you were … that you wanted ...” and Fenris' hand appears over the edge of the bed, his fingers curling into the wood. “With the Blooming Rose and _Isabela_ ,” and Carver feels his face heat because of _course_ Fenris knew about that, he'd already thought so, but this is _proof_. “I thought you wanted nothing more than something … physical. Though I--”

It's too much. Carver makes a fist and shoves it into his mouth to stop himself from saying something stupid. _I don't, I don't, I don't_. He bites down on his knuckle until he's sure it will bruise, and then pulls it away, takes a breath. “And then?”

“You said. And I wanted. And I felt.”

He can't do this any more. He feels like he's breaking. “ _Fenris!_ Maker,” and he clenches his fists, nails digging into his palms and they _hurt_ , and maybe he's breaking the skin but it doesn't matter because he's loose right now, just a leaf on the wind, and he doesn't care who hears him. “I don't know what to do!”

There's the sound of cloth on cloth and then Fenris drops light and catlike onto the floor, just a shadow against shadows, balancing himself with one hand against the bed, and Carver can't help himself. He reaches for him, clumsy in the dark, his fingers tangling in the borrowed shirt, and then there's the messy press of their faces and he finds Fenris' mouth, warm and open for him, and everything is okay.

He lets go of the shirt, cupping both hands under Fenris' jaw, and just holding him there while they kiss and kiss and kiss, and it's like drinking from a well when he's been dying of thirst. Fenris gasps, high and wild, and his hands catch in Carver's collar, not letting him go, and Carver pulls, and they tumble onto the horrid prickly mattress in a mess of limbs, and it's the best thing Carver has ever known.

“Don't go,” he begs, and Fenris laughs brokenly against his mouth.

“I won't,” he promises. “I won't.”

Carver can't stop kissing him, can't stop tasting him, can't stop himself from devouring Fenris' mouth. It's everything he's ever wanted, and Fenris said he wouldn't leave, not this time, and maybe, maybe, maybe...

Fenris knots his hands in Carver's hair, pulling him up to lick his way across Carver's lips and down his jaw, burying his face in Carver's neck and biting him softly, breathing a sigh over Carver's skin. There's a blanket between them, and Carver pulls it back, dragging it over them both and then, with his arm across Fenris' back, he hesitates.

“You don't want me to,” he whispers, sliding his arm away, but Fenris bites him again, mouthing his way up to Carver's ear.

“No,” he growls. “I do.”

And that's all he needs. Carver wraps both arms around Fenris and just holds him, pressing his nose into the hollow of Fenris' neck, inhaling the scent of leather and sweat and elf, and this is _it_ , this is where he wants to be. Here, in this shitty straw bed, with the stink of Kirkwall seeping under the door of his dickheaded uncle's house, with no plan and no goal except to just _hold on_ until everything makes sense.

Why did it take so long to figure this out?

“What's wrong with me?” he whispers.

Fenris catches Carver's ear between his teeth and tugs. “Nothing.”

That's it. He's gone.

He nuzzles into Fenris' hair, feeling the edges of his self fray and tatter. There's nothing he can do now, nothing to keep him whole. 

Except this.


	23. Chapter 23

In the morning, Fenris is gone.

Carver sits bolt upright, wide awake in a heartbeat, and Fenris is _gone_.

No, this isn’t fair, he said he wouldn’t leave, how _could_ he? Carver stares the floor where Fenris’ armour had been, and where the neatly folded shirt he’d worn to bed is now, and it’s all wrong.

Carver buries his face in his hands and he can hear his mother in the kitchen. He doesn’t want to face her. She’ll be in soon, probably trying to make him drink something hot. He’s got to pull himself together. 

He yanks back the blanket, meaning to get up, and hears the click of metal on metal.

There’s a gauntlet on the bed. He picks it up and the articulated joints shift in his hand like something living. It’s wicked, and cold, and dangerous, and he spreads the sharp fingertips against his palm. The thing is too small for him, he thinks, matching it against his arm. His hand is too broad, fingers too thick. The delicate wrist that fits inside this is small enough that he could circle it with his forefinger and thumb. It smells of metal, and blood, and oil, and Fenris.

His mother is talking to someone in the kitchen, and then he hears the low rumble of a reply, and he’s out of the bed and into his trousers and through the door in his bare feet before he can think, still holding the gauntlet against his chest. 

His mother smiles. “Darling, I was just coming to wake you. Have some tea.”

Fenris is sitting at the table, a cup and a stack of griddlecakes in front of him. He shakes his hair down into his eyes and then tilts his head to look up almost shyly. Carver’s mouth is so dry he can’t speak.

His mother fills him a cup. “Serrah Fenris has been enlightening me about your adventures. It all sounds very dangerous, I must say. Your father would be proud, I think, but I can’t help worrying about you.”

“ _Mo_ ther,” Carver complains, dropping into a chair.

“Your son is more than competent enough to take care of himself, mistress,” Fenris says quietly.

Carver blinks at him, and can feel his face going red. “Don’t worry, Mother. Fenris has my back,” he says carefully, and the elf shifts, his heels drumming restlessly on the floor.

There’s another plate of griddlecakes. Carver is still clutching the gauntlet. He holds it out; Fenris extends his bare arm, fingers twitching. Carver can feel his heart thunk heavily against his ribcage, and his fingers are thick and clumsy as he fits the gauntlet to Fenris’ hand, settling the armour against his wrist and tightening the fastenings. That he manages it is something of a miracle. That Fenris lets him is another.

“Of course, darling, but all the same, I’m glad your brother didn’t take you with him on this expedition of his. It’s bad enough worrying about one of you without worrying about both of you at once.”

He brushes the flat of his thumb against the thin veins in Fenris’ wrist, and Fenris closes his fingers, scraping the sharp points across Carver’s palm. It makes him smile, just a little, and there’s a curl to Fenris’ mouth that says he sees it and is smiling too.

“I hope he’s all right. He said he might be a few weeks, but I really did think he’d be home by now. I’m sure he’s fine, it’s only the not knowing that makes it hard.”

Fenris’ bare toes curl against Carver’s instep under the table, and he inhales, giddy, his nerves singing. Fenris ducks his head and forks griddlecake into his mouth, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. Carver wants to kiss them.

“He _is_ all right, isn’t he?” 

He looks up. His mother is twisting a cloth in her hands, her knuckles white, and he feels suddenly guilty.

“He’ll be _fine_ , Mother. He’s _always_ fine. It’s one of the things that make him so annoying.” 

She nods, smiling weakly. “He won’t be much longer, will he?”

“He’ll probably get home just when I’ve got used to having the room to myself,” Carver tells her, and starts eating his breakfast.

There’s an odd smell in the kitchen, heavy and meaty, and at first Carver isn’t sure what it is. Then--

“What’s _that_?”

“This?” His mother glances at the skinned carcass on the counter behind her. “It’s a kid. Courtesy of Serrah Fenris.”

It’s not a good idea to laugh and eat at the same time, and Carver has no-one but himself to blame if he chokes to death on a griddlecake. He waves away their help, spluttering, and gulps down some tea. A goat. It’s a bloody _goat_.

Fenris clears his plate and pushes it back. “Thankyou, mistress. Your hospitality is generous and welcome.”

“And your generosity is very kind, serrah.”

There’s something surreal about his mother and his ... whatever Fenris is, exchanging politenesses in the kitchen of Gamlen’s hovel, as cool and poised as if they were in a bloody palace. It makes him feel thick and rough, but he tells himself he’s just not stuck up. Not that his mother is stuck up, or Fenris, just-- damnit.

“I will see you tonight.”

Fenris is looking at him, blinking his light, monstrous eyes, and Carver hears the question. “Where?”

“The Hanged Man is always open.”

Carver nods. “Right. See you there.” A whole day. What in Thedas is he going to do for a whole _day_?

Fenris makes a small formal bow to Carver’s mother and takes his leave, and Carver leans his head on his fist, toying with his breakfast. That was all very ... something.

“ _Well_.” His mother picks up Fenris’ plate and wipes it clean. “He’s certainly interesting.”

“He’s all right,” Carver mumbles around a mouthful, blushing and not wanting to make a thing out of it.

“Carver, don’t talk with food in your mouth.” His mother reaches for Fenris’ cup and then looks into it. “Shall I read his fortune?”

“Mother,” Carver says wearily. “That’s just superstition. You _know_ you can’t read fortunes in a teacup.”

“I _can_ ,” she says, smiling. “You used to like me reading your fortune. You used to ask for it.”

He snorts. “Yeah, when I was _six_. I used to like my apples cut into _stars_ when I was six.”

“Well, I’m going to do it anyway,” his mother says, all mock petulance. He loves her like this, though he can’t say it, loves her best when she’s childish and sweet and pretending to naivety. It makes him think of Bethany, and that’s never going to stop hurting, but it’s a good hurt when it’s like this, a bittersweetness instead of just bitterness.

His mother tips the cup out onto Fenris’ plate, turns it three times, and then lifts it to peek inside. “Oh,” she says. “ _Well_. That’s _very_ interesting.”

In spite of himself, Carver is watching her. “What is?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

He shrugs. “I don’t.”

She arches an eyebrow at him. “Then why are you asking?” He makes a frustrated noise and stuffs his mouth with griddlecake and she shakes her head, smiling. “Oh, I see. Well. First of all, I see a tall, dark-haired stranger.”

Carver rolls his eyes. “It’s always that. _Always_.”

“Mmm, and it was for me, too,” she says, and sighs. “Your father turned out to be my tall dark stranger, and _what_ a fortune _that_ was. Scorching kisses and all!”

Carver makes a face. The idea of his parents kissing is still embarrassing; he remembers when he was little trying to get between them to push them apart when they kissed, embarrassed and uncomfortable. His father would just pick him up under one arm and keep on kissing his mother, while Carver kicked and whined and Bethany giggled.

“I see some scorching kisses in here, too,” his mother says, winking at him over Fenris’ cup.

“ _Moth_ er,” he protests.

She laughs. “He’s exotic, isn’t he? So very handsome. And his voice! My, he gave me a turn when he came out this morning.” She fans herself with one hand, smiling at him, and Carver knows he's turning pink again, and he huffs crossly.

“He's a bit young for you, Mother.”

“How old _is_ he?” she asks, eyes bright.

Carver has no idea. “Does it matter?”

She laughs, and leans over to stroke his hair. “Oh, darling. Not even a little.” She tilts her head on one side and brushes the hair out of his eyes. “He seems very nice,” she says, and Carver doesn't know what to think of it, just grumbles and stabs at the table with his fork, and lets her pet him. 

He does love her. Even if sometimes he doesn't know what's going on in her head.

“So, you'll be going out tonight? To see your friend,” she says, picking up his empty plate and gently taking the fork out of his hand.

“I guess,” he says, knowing full well that he's going, no matter what.

“Then will you help me take this kid apart?” She gestures at the goat carcass. There's a cleaver on the block, all ready for someone to start butchering. “Your father always took care of these things.”

Well. In that case, definitely.

It seems a far less romantic gesture when Carver is up to his wrists in bone fragments and gore, but he's still amused by the whole thing. A goat. For his mother. Who would have thought?

She has planned to trade out cuts of meat for other things, like salt and sugar and spices. “And butter,” she says with some satisfaction. “How long has it been since we had real butter?”

“Don't let Uncle eat it all,” he tells her, and she laughs, hugging his arm.

“Gamlen likes butter more than _Garrett_ ,” she says, leaning her head on his shoulder. 

He frowns. “Don't let Garrett eat it all, either.”

Later, with the stink of meat washed off and his hands and neck smelling of apple soap, Carver waits impatiently for sunset and sets off for the Hanged Man as soon as the light vanishes off the horizon. He doesn't want to be early, and hear all about Isabela's sailors, but he also doesn't want to be late, in case Fenris grows tired of waiting and heads back home.

As it happens, he is only a little late, and even then he only thinks he's late because when he arrives Fenris is settled at a table and he is not alone.

Sebastian. Carver doesn't like the priest. He's so _clean_ and _neat_ and perfectly mannered. It's sickening, really, and why Fenris tolerates him is a mystery. Carver frowns, tries to wipe the frown off his face, and joins them with a bad grace. “Evening.”

Sebastian smiles. It's a stupidly handsome smile, and Carver hates it. Fenris does not smile, simply nods, not looking up, and touches the empty mug opposite him. “Drink?”

“Sure.” Fenris pours, and Carver tries not to watch him too obviously.

“Blessings of the Maker,” Sebastian says, and then his brow furrows. “You do not look as though you would appreciate them just now, though, Hawke. Is there something wrong?”

“No.” Carver takes a deep breath. _Act normal._ “Is there something wrong with _you_?”

Sebastian looks surprised. “No, nothing. Why do you--”

But Isabela rescues them all from an awkward conversation by plunging them into another. “Three handsome men walk into a bar,” she says brightly, dropping onto the bench at Carver's side, and leaning up against his arm. “One of them buys me a drink.” She grins expectantly around at them. “Come on, don't leave a lady without a punchline.” She makes an exaggerated play for Carver's mug, and pouts at him when he defends it. “Oh, I see. So. Who wants to know what I did last night?”

Carver clears his throat, well aware of how Fenris is looking at them both. “Last time I saw you, you were knee deep in sailors.”

“And last I saw _you_ you were going home _alone_ ,” she says, propping one of her boots on the table. “I think that means I win. Maker, I hope I win. Otherwise I might as well being doing this just for myself.”

It's as though the priest and the pirate can't help it. He keeps trying to bring the conversation back to Andraste, and she finds a way to make everything he says sound filthy. It's actually hilarious, and Carver can't help grinning goofily every time Isabela says something that makes Sebastian shake his head.

Fenris, meanwhile, seems to agree with a lot of the boring nonsense Sebastian is spouting, or at least he doesn't appear to disagree.

“There’s peace to be found in the Maker,” Sebastian says in response to a long and ridiculous joke of Isabela's about why soldiers need brothels between battles.

Fenris stares thoughtfully into his drink, and nods, and Carver catches himself glaring at Sebastian again. How does he get away with being such a wanker?

“Oh, your peace is _boring_ ,” Isabela says, flicking a bit of something-she-found-on-the-table at him. “I just want to have some fun. What’s so wrong with that?”

“Your fun will destroy you,” Sebastian says, all annoying earnestness. 

Isabela snorts and snuggles into Carver’s side. “That’s what makes it fun.”

Carver sees Fenris frowning at him and realises that Isabela is draped over his shoulder in a very ... something sort of way. He starts, and then makes an attempt to disentangle himself. “Another jug?”

They’ve shuffled when he gets back. Sebastian has moved into his seat, and Isabela is arm wrestling him. Fenris doesn’t look up as Carver sits down, but he does twitch when Carver presses his knee against the elf’s thigh.

“All right?”

Fenris nods.

“Isabela, you’re cheating.”

“Breasts aren’t cheating!”

They don’t talk much to each other, but knowing Fenris is there, seeing him smirk at Isabela’s dirty jokes and Sebastian’s long-suffering sighs, is a comfort. Carver can feel him, slight and warm and within arm’s reach, and he can’t stop watching Fenris’ hands move on his cup and flex against the grain of the table.

It becomes obvious after a while that Sebastian isn’t nearly as driven-snow-pure as he pretends; Isabela says something about showers of gold that Carver doesn’t follow and Sebastian covers his mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking. 

“And on that note,” she stands up, cocking her hips suggestively. “I’m off to the Rose. Any of you dashing young men want to accompany a lady to a brothel?”

They all walk her up to Hightown, in the end, Sebastian peeling off early and heading for the Chantry. Isabela tries to talk Carver and Fenris into coming in with her, but Fenris just huffs and Carver tells her to go have a good time.

“I _will_ ,” she laughs, skipping inside. “You too! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Which leaves pretty much _everything_.

And then they’re alone. For a long moment they just look at each other, and then Fenris shrugs one shoulder, turning but not quite looking away. “You ...” He doesn't need to say it. Carver can hear it. _Come with me_.

Carver grins. “Yeah.”

Two things surprise him. First, Fenris locks the door. It's the first time he's ever done _that_ , Carver's pretty sure. He does it decisively, doesn't look up, just touches the tips of his gauntlet to the inside of Carver's wrist and then he's off up the stairs, leaping from step to step in a series of weirdly inhuman bounds. Like a cat. Or a wolf. Or something.

The second thing is under a cloth spread out on the table, which Fenris pulls back tentatively, blinking up at Carver through the veil of his hair.

“Cheese?”

“This one is sheepsmilk,” Fenris tells him, “this one maresmilk. This one is … I'm not sure what the word for it is, but from deer?”

“Doe? Doesmilk?” _Is that even a thing?_ “You can make cheese out of that?”

“It appears so.”

There's also dried fruit and flatbread and, of course, several bottles of wine. They drag the table in front of the hearth, where it's warmest. Carver tries all the cheeses, and likes the sheepsmilk the best, though that might be because it's soft and squishy. “Can you make cheese out of any kind of milk?”

“I do not see why not.”

Carver makes a face. “What about dog?”

Fenris laughs. He has taken off his armour and he's flushed with wine and the heat of the fire, and when he reaches over to touch Carver's knuckles it pings down his nerves like lightning. “So Ferelden,” Fenris says, and he sounds not just amused, but … fond? “If I see any in the market I will be sure to buy it for you.”

“Yeah, you don't have to,” Carver says, and then-- “I thought you didn't like the markets. The haggling.”

“I summon the courage to venture down there anyway.” He's smiling, eyes closed, fingers resting lightly on the back of Carver's hand. “It is not as though there is anyone to do it for me.”

Carver flips his hand over, catching Fenris' fingers and interweaving them with his own. “I would,” he says, eyes on Fenris' neck where his tunic splits to show an enticing glimpse of skin stretched over bone. “I'd do it for you.”

“You would do my shopping?” The smile widens. “Will you also launder my clothes?”

“Not likely,” and Carver tugs a little at their hands. “I hate laundry.”

Fenris leans into the pull, and Carver bends in to meet him. He pushes his nose into Fenris' cheek, breathing him in. There's that elf smell, and cheese, and wine, and he licks his lips because it's all just delicious.

“Hey,” he whispers.

Fenris tightens his grip on Carver's hand. “Yes?”

“I wondered.”

“Mmm?”

Carver takes a deep breath. “What would you have done differently? If you'd known. About me.”

Fenris hums again, deeper this time, and presses a dry kiss to Carver's temple. “Shall I tell you, or show you?”

His heart feels too big for his chest, up in his throat, like it might choke him, and his tongue is thick and clumsy. “Wh-- which would you rather?”

Fenris leans back, eyes dark and _intent_ in a way Carver thinks he really, really likes.

Fenris chooses to show.

It's the first time anyone has ever done this for him, with their mouth, and Carver can't quite believe how incredible it feels. Fenris is on his knees, hands braced against Carver's hips, and Carver has his trousers around his thighs, arse up against the table, gripping it for support, fingers curling into the wood every time Fenris does that _thing_ , whatever it is, that makes his knees want to buckle.

“Fffffucking hell,” he gasps, and tries to articulate exactly how good this is. “Fenris, you … Maker, I … unfff...”

That can't be laughter. Fenris can't possibly be laughing _around_ him.

“Don't _laugh_ ,” he moans, though it feels _nice_ , and Fenris pulls back, lips sliding up and off, and he's _smiling_. Carver groans and drops heavily to the floor, knees crashing painfully on the stone, and covers that smile with his mouth.

They tangle there, a messy knot of hands and tongues, until Fenris drags himself away, slithering out of Carver's grip and leaning his weight back on one hand against the floor. 

“Bed,” he growls, and Carver struggles upright. His trousers have slipped down to his knees, leaving him thoroughly exposed, and his boots are still on, undershirt shoved halfway down one shoulder. He looks a mess. Probably. Victim of some terrible clothing accident.

Fenris, though, is staring. 

“You,” he mutters, and reaches up to run his palm over Carver's hip, up the sensitive skin of his side, and it tickles enough that Carver hunches over, nearly losing his balance.

“Me?”

Fenris, still wearing a lot of clothes, which is completely unfair, flows to his feet, which is _also_ completely unfair, because he's like a damn cat and Carver is this huge ungainly lump next to him. 

“You,” Fenris says again, knotting his fingers in Carver's shirt and tugging him in the direction of the bed. “You look...”

“Ridiculous,” Carver admits, embarrassed, letting himself be led, stumbling and trying to hitch up his pants because they're getting in the way.

“No. Not ridiculous.”

Then there's the bed, and Fenris helping him off with his boots, which feels silly and makes him laugh, and Fenris muttering something about this being another reason why elves don't wear shoes, which makes him laugh _again_. They shed their clothes, and it's cool enough that they climb under the covers, and Fenris lets himself be held and kissed, and doesn't complain when Carver breathes in his ear, brushing his lips against the pointy tip of it.

“Is this okay?”

Fenris bites him on the jaw. It's not gentle, but it doesn't really _hurt_. “More than.”

Something is different. It's better. Carver wishes he had the words to explain it, but all he can think is that there was something in the way of this, something difficult, and now it's … not quite gone, but less. Like a dam in a river, washed partly away in a storm, or, oh, he doesn't know. 

He strokes his hands up Fenris' spine, feeling all the hard muscle and bone, and Fenris sighs, arching, and blinks down at him with eyes gone huge and black in the half-light of the candles beside the bed. Fenris shifts, and Carver feels him between their bellies, both of them hard against each other, and just like that the mood turns back from sweet into the other thing.

“I want,” Fenris says, and stops, dropping his gaze to Carver's neck.

“What?”

He moves, rocking his hips just enough to make Carver gasp. “There is something... I want. But. You would have to be patient.” Carver hears the question he doesn't ask. _Can you be patient?_

He swallows, nods. “Okay.”

“And if it's too … I may want to stop. If.” 

_Will you stop if I say?_

“Okay. I … that's okay.”

Fenris exhales and leans over, reaching down beside the bed. Carver stays where he is, curious and apprehensive, until Fenris sits up, kneeling over him, and his heart skips because Fenris is holding Isabela's bottle.

He lets Fenris take his hand and coat his palm in slippery liquid, and then wrap their hands around them both, and the slide of their fingers is almost _perfect_. Almost completely.

His stupid brain won't stop thinking, though, and--

“I thought,” he gasps, not slowing his hand, “elves might be ... um.”

Fenris pauses, huffs out a breath. “What?”

“Different,” Carver says, curling his fingers around Fenris' hand and tugging. _Don't stop_.

“How so?”

“I don't know.”

Fenris looks down at the place where their cocks rub up against each other, and hums. “We _are_ different. Look.”

And they are, one dark and slightly curved, the other pinker and, well, bigger. But essentially the same. Similar, anyway.

“You've seen this... before,” Fenris says quietly, and he has, it's just that he _thought_ , and last time he wasn't really _looking_.

“I like it,” Carver says out loud, and then adds, “I like _you_.”

Fenris sighs, and touches Carver's face with his other hand. “I also. Like you.”

Carver closes his eyes. “Good. That's good.”

Then Fenris is pulling his hand up, and he has to look, and there's more of the slick on his fingers, and Fenris slides forward, straddling his ribs. He holds himself up, knees pressing into Carver's sides, not looking at him, and takes Carver's hand and guides it down between his legs. Carver can't look away, not when he feels the first press of his finger against the flesh behind Fenris' balls, not when Fenris starts to push him back, and up, and _inside_ him, and he can't see from here, but he can feel it all, and his mouth falls open because this, this is just … something. _Everything_.

He looks up, and Fenris has his eyes closed tight, frowning a little, and he's so fucking gorgeous it makes Carver's heart thud painfully in his chest.

Fenris takes the length of his finger, face twisting, and then pulls it out again and pushes it back _in_ , and Carver watches the shift and play of expressions across his face. Tentative, relaxed, tense, determined, needy … Maker's _breath_ , it's beautiful. _I want you. I want you so much, I want you, Maker, I_ want _you..._

Then Fenris shifts his grip on Carver's hand, and now it's two fingers, and Carver can't help himself -- he groans, pushing up into Fenris and wanting so much to do _something_ but not wanting to do anything that will make this end.

“Is that...” he whispers, because Fenris said he had to be patient and he can't, he can't, but he _will_.

“Yes.”

Three fingers? Is that what Fenris is doing now? “Are you sure?”

“ _Yes_.”

Maker's holy … when did Fenris' mouth get so _red_? 

Fenris' eyes snap open, and for a second Carver thinks that this is _it_ , that they've crossed a line and this is what Fenris meant when he said he might want to stop.

And then. Fenris pushes his hand away, sliding back, the bottle in his hand, and he's slicking Carver's cock and Carver can't quite believe this is going to happen. “No,” he says, not sure what he means. “No, don't, I … I'm too big, I'll hurt you.”

Fenris laughs, a ragged, breathy sound. “Delusions of grandeur,” he growls, and leans down to bite Carver's mouth, and it hurts but it's incredible. “This is what I want,” Fenris murmurs, and he's moving them both, pressing himself down and, fuck, Carver can't speak.

Then it's all the drag and pull of their flesh, Fenris above him, rising and sinking onto him and he can hear himself making nonsense sounds as his hands curl of themselves around Fenris' thighs, gripping as hard as he dares, and it's better than anything he's ever known. He's babbling, he knows it, and it might just be Fenris' name over and over again, but Fenris doesn't tell him to shut up, just keeps moving, tipping his head back, one hand around his own cock, and it's so much, too much, and Carver comes, heels dug into the bed, head shoved back in the pillow, and everything goes red and white in flashes behind his eyelids.

Fenris makes that _sound_ , that _growl_ , and shifts his weight. The tempo changes, and Carver forces his eyes open to see the flicker and flash of lyrium pulse across Fenris' skin as he brings himself off, spilling on Carver's chest.

Wow. 

Maker.

Carver can't move, can hardly breathe, and he watches as Fenris comes back to earth, leans forward, and runs a shaking hand over Carver's skin, sliding his fingers through the mess on Carver's chest and then, unbelievably, reaching up to smear it across Carver's lips.

He opens his mouth, lets Fenris push two fingers in, and it's bitter but okay, with those eyes wide and watching him. _This is me_ , they say. _This is us._

 _Yes_.

It's quiet now, and maybe it was before only he couldn't hear it over the rush of blood in his ears. It's so still, while they catch their breath and look at each other, and Carver feels more naked than he ever has in his life, not just bare to his skin but _more_ , as though he's exposed everything, and Fenris can see all the things he normally keeps to himself.

If he can see them he doesn't say anything, just twists, disentangles himself, and moves away, one hand trailing down Carver's arm. 

And now there's a distance, a weird thing that isn't defined by the actual space between them but by what they've done. Fenris gets up, staggers a little, and straightens, both hands in the small of his back as he stretches. How he can even move right now Carver doesn't know, because he couldn't do it if his life depended on it, and even with the evidence of all this sex cooling on his skin he can barely summon the energy to lift a hand, feebly trying to call Fenris back to bed.

Fenris glances at him, smirks, and makes a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Wait.”

He waits. Fenris rummages about and comes back with cloths and water, and then there's the awkwardness of cleaning up, and Fenris climbs back into the bed, pulls up the covers, and sprawls bonelessly on Carver's chest.

“Was that … all right?”

Fenris laughs. He loves it when Fenris laughs. It's so … personal. “You have to ask?”

Carver curls around him, folding him in his arms, and it feels amazing. He sighs, his breath puffing Fenris' cornsilk hair up, and it floats down against his face, tickling his cheek.

“Are you planning on going to sleep wrapped around me like this?”

Carver grins. “Yeah.”

“Then let me...” and Fenris twists, rolling over to press his back against Carver's front, pulling Carver's arm over him and pressing their twined hands snug against his chest. They fit, and the line of Fenris' back is curved exactly right so that Carver can feel the whole length of him, all the way down to where their legs tangle together. “Better,” he says, and Carver can feel the rumble of that voice through his chest.

They lie like that and Carver closes his eyes, thinking about this, and how it's different, and what it means now that things are different. And how much Fenris' hair tickles his nose. “Your hair smells like tea,” he murmurs into the elf's neck.

“Chamomile.”

“Why does your hair smell like tea?” Carver asks, twitching his fingers against Fenris' skin.

“Because I wash my hair in _tea_ ,” Fenris says archly, and Carver thinks he's probably joking. “Go to sleep.”

Carver kisses Fenris' shoulder. He's pretty sure he's allowed to do that, now. Fenris hums in his throat. That's got to be a good sign, right?

Fenris seems to like being kissed. Carver thinks it's pleasant, all the kissing, and he'd always thought of kisses as being what you were supposed to do to get a girl (one you weren't paying for) to let you do other things, but with Fenris the kisses are something in and of themselves, just another thing they do, something they like, something exciting. And probably leading to other things too, of course.

Fenris seems to like a lot of things. Carver feels his face grow warm when he thinks about Fenris on top of him, doing ... that. Whatever that's called. It looked incredible. All that unbelievable elf -- no, all that unbelievable _Fenris_ just rising above him and...

“Which do you like more?” he asks impulsively, not thinking, just talking. “When you're doing, uh, _inside_ of ... me, or when it's me, inside you?”

Fenris makes a deep noise like a growl. “I like them both.”

“But if you could choose?”

There's a shifting of limbs. Carver pushes himself up on one elbow and Fenris rolls onto his back, looking up at him and, Maker, those eyes just smite him. He's smitten. It's amazing.

“I choose both,” Fenris says. “If I may. But, perhaps, I prefer the former for everyday.”

“You want to do that every day?”

Fenris closes his eyes, and his smile is unselfconscious and broad. “Maybe not _every_ day.”

“Cause, I could,” Carver offers. “If you wanted. I mean, I reckon I could do it.”

“Boastful,” Fenris murmurs, but he's still smiling.

“What do you like about it?” Carver asks.

Fenris makes an exasperated sound, blinking at him. “You aren't going to sleep, are you?”

“I'm not tired.”

Fenris chuckles, and trails his fingers over Carver's cheek. “This is what I deserve for taking a younger lover,” he growls.

Oh. Carver swallows. “Is that ... are we lovers, now?”

Fenris tenses. “If that is what you want,” he says, his voice dangerously level.

“I do,” Carver says quickly, tightening his arms around the elf because, no, he doesn't want this to end, not now, not _yet_. “I really do.”

He feels Fenris relax. “Then yes.”

Carver waits for his heart to start beating again before asking his next question. “How much older than me _are_ you?”

“I couldn't say,” Fenris wriggles a little. “How old are you?”

“Nearly twenty,” Carver says, but it's not exactly true. “Well, not _very_ nearly. Um. Nineteen and a bit.”

“I think I may have been a little younger than you when I received these markings,” Fenris says, touching his chin where the lines are most conspicuous. “It has been more than ten years. Make of that what you will.”

“You don't look as old as that,” Carver says, and he runs his thumb down the slope of Fenris' eyebrow, over his temple, brushing the skin near the corner of his eye where he doesn't have the sort of creases Carver associates with older people. “Elves don't age, then?”

“Not like humans.”

They're quiet for a while. Carver leans his forehead against Fenris' brow, listening to the in-and-outdraw of their breath. This part, the talking, is just as important as the rest, he thinks. It's a sort of comforting stillness taken out of time, just for them. Anything could be happening outside but in here it doesn't matter. They can just ... talk. Why has he never just _talked_ to anyone?

“Can you teach me,” he asks, “how to do that thing you do with your mouth?”

Fenris hums. “What thing?”

Carver doesn't blush. “All of it. Where you use your mouth.” 

Fenris pushes his nose into Carver's neck and bites him very gently. “I can, and I will teach you to _like_ it.”

That sends a shudder through Carver's whole body because, _Maker_ , suggestive words in that voice are just too much to bear. “So ... you like doing that, then? Mouth-sex.”

“I have done nothing with you I do not like,” Fenris murmurs into his neck, hands running the length of Carver's torso. “And I will _do_ nothing with you I do not like. Nor will I do anything with you that you tell me you do not like. Agreed?”

Carver nods, swallowing. His cock twitches, pressed against Fenris' thigh, and he's getting hard again. Urgh, stupid cock. Stupid, stupid lack of control over his _feelings_. Maybe Fenris won't notice.

Fenris moves in a way that says he _has_ noticed. “Hmmm.”

“Hum?”

“Roll over.”

Carver does, and Fenris flattens himself against Carver's back, one arm under Carver in the hollow of his neck, the other tucked in under his arm, fingers sliding down his belly, tracing the lines of his muscles, and he raises his mouth to graze Carver's ear. “Shall I tell you how much I like using my mouth on you?” Fenris murmurs and Carver squeezes his eyes shut.

“Y-es.”

Fenris makes a low sound, his hand stroking the line that runs from Carver's hip to his groin. It makes him squirm, because it tickles, and also because it makes his cock throb. “I like going down on my knees for you,” and he sounds amused, and Carver smiles, because it makes him remember the first time Fenris said something like that, so long ago now, with everything they've done. “I like pulling away your clothes, seeing you in the flesh,” and that, too, makes Carver smile because it's a sort of _pun_ and puns are always funny. “I like the scent of you, and breathing you in, and pushing my face into your crotch.”

Fenris runs his hand down, fingertips grazing Caver's cock, and fuck, yeah, he's definitely hard now. He hears Fenris draw in a breath and feels him breathe it out onto his neck, warm and close and really _really_ there. He tenses, makes himself relax, and brushes his hand along the muscles of Fenris' thigh, snug against his own. “Go on,” he whispers.

“I like your skin.” Fenris slides his fingers up Carver's length, very lightly, and Carver tries not to sigh too loudly. “I like the taste of you on my tongue.” His hand slips down again to stroke Carver's balls, cupping them carefully and running his thumb over them, one and then the other. “I like the way you feel different here,” and he squeezes very gently, before sliding back up to take Carver's cock in his palm. “And here.”

“Fenris,” Carver moans, because it's too slow, almost, when he's this hard, and it takes such an effort not to buck into the touch. “More...”

Fenris is merciless. “I like,” he whispers, lips tickling the skin behind Carver's ear, “taking you into my mouth, and how you feel in the back of my throat.” He starts to stroke, now, so slow it makes Carver whine in spite of himself. “I like how you hold still, and I can feel you wanting to move under my hands, but you don't, you just shake and hold still and make those _noises_.”

“I liked how you held me down,” Carver gasps, trying not to grind into Fenris' hand.

“I like that too.” His hand is moving faster now, callused forefinger running up over the head of Carver's cock, and it's deliciously agonising how smoothly he does it, how deliberate, because by now Carver would have given in and just fucked his own palm relentlessly. “I like feeling the tension in you when you are close to the edge. I like teasing you.” 

And he slows the fuck down, and Carver can't help the thin wail that escapes from his mouth because, no, no, _no_ , that's just too cruel. “ _Fen_ ris,” he gasps. “Don't ... just ... _please_!”

Fenris chuckles, which is stupidly arousing, and catches Carver's ear in his teeth. “Please what?”

It's a kind of torture, and Carver squeezes Fenris' thigh, wanting him to feel how very much Carver wants this, and how awful it is to be denied. “Please let me!”

“'Let' you?”

Carver swallows. “ _Make_ me,” he begs, not caring how he sounds, which is good because he sounds so desperate. “Please make me, Fenris, please!”

It's the right thing to say, it seems, because Fenris growls and speeds up his strokes, pulling Carver up against him and pushing the blankets away, and Carver makes a high-pitched noise, shuddering as he comes hot and hard on his own skin.

Fenris lifts his hand and brings it up over Carver's shoulder to suck his fingers clean. “Better?” he asks, low and throaty, and Carver makes an incoherent noise because _yes_ , better, so much better, and turns his head to kiss Fenris and he can taste his own salt in Fenris' mouth.

After a moment Fenris untangles himself, and reaches over the side of the bed for a cloth. “Here.”

Carver mops himself up, feeling stupidly clumsy and euphoric and tired. “Oh ...”

Fenris hums and curls against Carver's side, tugging the bedcovers around them both. “Go to sleep,” he says, and he sounds amused but it's not as though Carver can really care about that, not right now, even if he _is_ being laughed at. It's probably all right. Probably. Plus, Fenris can laugh at him all he wants, so long as he does things like _that_ first.

“That was...” and he takes a deep breath, trying to slow his heart, which is hammering like a mad blacksmith. “Really good.”

“I am glad. Good _night_ ,” Fenris says pointedly, and Carver takes the hint.


	24. Chapter 24

They tumble in and out of bed for days, and Carver’s never done this before, never spent so much time trying to map every inch of someone’s body, and the whole thing is dizzying.

Isabela teases him. “Puppy, you’re _glowing_ ,” she says, looping her arms around his neck, her breasts pushed up against his shoulder. “ _So_ handsome. Being in love agrees with you.”

It makes him blush. In love. Maybe he is in love. Neither he nor Fenris have said anything like that, but there’s an intensity to all of this that screams it, and really, Carver doesn’t think it needs to be said aloud. Some things can’t be said in words, but can only be painted in broad strokes across another person’s skin.

Everything is Fenris, and Fenris is everything, and he can’t stop thinking about him, can’t stop talking about him, and Isabela laughs and Merrill smiles politely but he’s pretty sure he’s boring them both to death.

Isabela says something about Antivan leather, and Carver starts-- “Fenris says,” and stops because both of them are giggling, though Merrill is trying to hide it behind one slim, pale hand.

“No, go on! What does Fenris say about Antivan leather?” Isabela leans her chin in her palm and grins at him.

It's embarrassing. “I … never mind.”

“Nooo,” Merrill laces her fingers together and leans _her_ chin on them, eyes shining. “Do tell. I'm sure it's lovely.”

He looks from one of them to the other, and makes a face. “No.”

“Please!”

“You're making too big a deal out of it,” he complains, but then the door of the Hanged Man bangs open and the part of him that thinks it knows where Fenris is at all times just leaps into the front of his brain because Fenris is _here_.

Isabela follows the line of his gaze and sighs. “Ah, our hero cometh. And _how_ he cometh. Some day, puppy, you'll have to tell me just how he _doth_ cometh.”

“If I'm a kitten and Carver is a puppy,” Merrill asks sweetly, “then whatever is _Fenris_?”

Fenris (within earshot now) stops, looks at her, and frowns. “What?”

“Ah, well, Fenris is obviously a wolf,” Isabela says sagely, and she's more than a little drunk, lifting her cup as though making a toast. “But _that_ doesn't make for a very good nickname. I like … broodypants.”

Fenris gives her a narrow look. “Do not tempt me to break your other arm,” he says gruffly, and Carver's not sure if it's an empty threat or not.

Isabela chuckles. “Oh, _broody_. You broody thing. Let me buy you a drink or three.”

Remarkably, Fenris tolerates this, and sits, glancing at Carver without saying anything. Carver tries not to grin at him, but Isabela isn't the only one who's giddy with booze, and Carver does his best not to make mooncalf eyes but probably fails horribly.

Isabela snorts into her cup. “ _Puppy_. You're _adorable_.”

Horrible failure.

“You're so serious, Fenris,” Merrill puts in. She's been nursing the same drink all afternoon, but perhaps the intoxication is contagious, because her cheeks are flushed and she hasn't stopped herself mid-blither for ages. “Why so serious? Aren't you happy? You should be happy. We're happy for you. Can't you be happy that we're happy for you?”

Fenris eyes them all, and mutters, “I am clearly not drunk enough for this.”

Isabela buys another round.

Much later, Carver finds himself up against a wall, laughing crazily at something, only he's forgotten what.

It was something hilarious. Something about bees and flowers. Something Merrill said, and then Isabela invented a hand gesture for it and-- he starts laughing again.

“Fenris!” Fenris is here. “Lemme tell you about _bees_!”

Fenris looks amused, only he hasn't heard about the bees yet. Only. Maybe Carver already told him about bees.

“You're too heavy to carry, Hawke. Walk for me.”

Walking is easy, and Carver pushes off the wall, only the ground is very, very stubborn. “I can walk. I'm walking now.”

Someone is laughing his favourite laugh, and there's a shoulder under his armpit, supporting him.

“Fffenris,” and that must be him, though he doesn't remember thinking or saying it. “Fenris.”

“Yes?” 

Where are they? It's dark, but then it already was, and now it's a familiar, comforting dark. “Fenris, is this your house?”

Fenris makes a deep, rumbling sound that means he's amused, and Carver reaches for him.

“Fenris,” he says again, pulling Fenris down to kiss him. 

Down. That's interesting. Usually it's 'up'. 

He tastes like booze. And elf. And mostly like Fenris.

“Have I told you how much I like you?”

Fenris makes that noise again, and tugs, and Carver reels up into the pull, and lets himself be led wherever. “You have said some things. I want to hear all of them.”

Ow! He barks his shins and makes an attempt to right himself, trying to navigate these horrible stairs, and it can't be that hard, just a lift and drop of feet -- only it turns out to be much more complicated than that, and he sits down on the steps, laughing. “Oh, Maker, I think I'm drunk.”

“Yesss.” And Fenris sits down next to him, which is just wonderful, and Carver pulls him into a hug because, Maker, this is all he ever wants.

“ _Fenris_ ,” he says, and can't remember where he was going from here.

“Hawke.”

But, that's not quite right. “No, don't say that. I'm not … I'm not my father.”

Fenris leans his head into Carver's neck, presses his mouth up into the hollow behind Carver's ear.

“Carver.”

That's the first time, and Carver can't help himself. “Ireallylikeyou...” Fenris makes that noise again, and Carver isn't sure if he's being made fun of, but he _really_ doesn't mind.

“Come upstairs. Can you?”

Carver can, and he does, and then he's on his back on the bed and Fenris is taking off his boots _again_ and he laughs because it's just too silly.

“Maker,” he says, and then, “You're amazing,” and then, “Fenris, don't be mad, but I,” and then he stops because what he was going to say next is just too big, and he can't fit it into words but he _means_ it, and that should be enough, shouldn't it?

“You what?”

“I--” and somehow Fenris has got his trousers off, which is completely okay, is in fact great, and he hooks one ankle around Fenris' leg and tangles one hand into Fenris' beautiful, beautiful hair, and tugs him down, and Fenris _lets_ him, which is more amazing than anything. “Let's build a house.”

“A house.” There's the press of a mouth to his neck and the sharp bite of teeth. “You want to build a house.”

“I'd build you a house,” he says, curling his hands into Fenris' shoulders, fitting his fingers into the swell of muscles there. _I want to build you a house out of, of, gingerbread. Or whatever. Some kind of cake. Or bricks. Cake bricks. Real bricks. I don't care._ “I'd build you a sodding _cottage_. With a kitchen and, and everything.”

A sigh. And the shift of teeth against his skin. “Oh, really?”

“I'd build you a bleeding _chimney_ ,” he mutters, pushing his face into Fenris' hair, and smelling all that fresh herbal tea smell. “They're fucking _difficult_.”

Fenris pulls back, sits up, looking down at him, and why is he always underneath? Probably because he's so comfortable right now. It's nice. He really is the heaviest, so it sort of makes sense.

“Is that what you want?”

Why is he asking so many questions? Yes, yes, this is what Carver _wants_ , and how can he express it without sounding _stupid_?

“I do! I bloody _do_... why don't you … Fenris, build a sodding cottage with me, for fuck's sake!”

Fenris is chuckling, but he's also kissing his way up Carver's jaw and biting him which he always seems to do when he's … something about something.

“Why don't you want to live in my gingerbread cottage?” And now Fenris is laughing in earnest, and Carver tries to sit up but Fenris is up in his face, mouth open and pressed against his own, and while he may be laughing he has his arms wrapped around Carver and he's holding him, and it's lovely, and it's really hard for Carver to stay cross about it.

“Maker, I,” he says, and then he doesn't know how to finish, because all the words just flow away from him.

“I, also.”

He's drunk, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't mean it.

“I'm yours,” he whispers.

“And I am yours,” Fenris says, face pressed hard against Carver's skin

Which is, really, everything.


	25. Chapter 25

He comes home from another day of looking for work, and his mother is piling coins on the kitchen counter; a little silver and a lot of copper.

She looks tired. “Would you like me to make you some tea, Mother?”

“That would be lovely, darling,” she says, and then arches an eyebrow at him. “Do you _know_ how to boil a kettle?”

“Ha, bloody _ha_.” 

He stokes up the fire and fills the kettle. It’s quiet, except for the crackle of burning wood and the constant groan of Kirkwall seeping through the walls. He’s not used to it, still. The house was never quiet when his father was alive; someone was always talking, or doing something; the clatter of his mother in the kitchen, Garrett learning to read, or figure, or helping Father replace the pegs on a chair. Bethany and he would play endless games of make-believe, mostly centred around heroes and dragons. Sometimes Garrett would be their dragon, flapping about with a sheet over his shoulders, roaring at them. He played rough, though, and Carver remembers getting a lot of bruises and grazed knees that way.

After Father died ... things changed. Everything was quieter, dimmer, like their lives were wrapped in wool. For a while.

And then Garrett grew his stupid beard, and stopped being Garrett and started being the person everyone meant when they said ‘Hawke’. Bethany started singing again, would sing to herself as she sewed or worked in the garden, and the house filled up with arguing and laughter, little by little. Not that they forgot. Not when they were four people, in a house built for five.

And now it’s just the two of them, with Garrett gone and Gamlen out and Bethany just a memory behind his eyelids. Mother was always the quietest of them all. Which leaves it up to Carver to make all the noise.

“You must hate this kitchen,” he says awkwardly, pouring hot water into the teapot and letting it steep.

“Mmm,” she says, moving a coin from one pile to another. “The oven in Meadowrun was my favourite. It drew so evenly. Your father sprained his wrist fixing the chimney -- well, sliding off the roof because it was raining when the chimney fell in and the house filled up with smoke.”

“I don’t remember Meadowrun.”

“Oh, it was before you were born. I was pregnant with Garrett and your father fretted so over every little thing...” She holds a coin in her fingers, one paltry copper, looking-but-not-looking at it, and then she sighs. “We were so happy. We didn’t have anything, and that winter we lived on millet and beans, and wouldn’t have had even those if not for the kindness of strangers.”

She sounds sad, but-- “You don’t regret it at all,” Carver says, setting down a cup in amongst her coin piles.

“Not even a little,” and she smiles at him. “My mother told me only fools marry for love, but it was worth it. Every minute of it.”

 _And now that he’s gone?_ But he can’t ask her that, he wouldn’t dare.

“I hope you’ll do the same, darling,” she says, taking a dainty sip of tea. “Though, I wouldn’t fault you if you fell in love with someone a little wealthier than your father. Love can carry you through the dark times, but poverty makes the dark times even darker.”

Carver shrugs, folding his arms. “Maybe I’ll make enough money for both of us.”

She looks at him, eyebrows drawing together. “I’m sure you’ll find your way,” she says. Then she tilts her head on one side, regarding him thoughtfully. “You’re not still running around with that young lady in the ... boots, are you?”

Carver has no idea what she’s talking about for a moment, and then nearly spits his tea. “You mean Isabela?” He makes a face. “I ... we go out for drinks. And we ... sometimes we,” _kill people_ , “do some work together. But. She’s just a friend.” And one time, a naked friend. Technically, two times. At the same time.

“She really doesn’t seem like the type to settle down,” and she sounds distracted. She picks up another coin and hesitates, hovering it between two piles. “I do hope your brother comes home soon,” she says, and there’s something in her voice, something that hurts, and as much as Carver doesn’t care about Garrett he cares that his _mother_ cares. Or at least, he tells himself that’s what it is.

“He will.”

“I hope so,” she says again. “We really are running out of coin,” and she laughs a little, weakly, and Carver can’t tell if she’s trying to make light of her worry over Garrett or over the money.

“He’ll come back,” Carver tells her, brushing her hair away from her cheek. “And don’t worry, I’ll take care of us.” _Even if he doesn’t come back_.

She sighs, and loops an arm around his waist, leaning her head against his chest. “Oh, Carver, I know you'd try. You always try so hard.”

But he isn’t his father, he knows it, and he isn’t Garrett, and she doesn’t believe in him.

“I _will_ take care of us,” he tells her, and she pats his back.

“Of course you will.”

Later, naked in Fenris’ bed, he talks about Ferelden, aching with homesickness. “I liked the army,” he says, trailing his fingers up Fenris’ sternum and feeling him breathe. “It was ... good. You just obey orders, keep your head down. Stay out of trouble.”

Fenris makes a low sound. “I cannot imagine you staying out of trouble.”

“Huh. You’re thinking of Garrett,” and he pokes Fenris in the ribs.

“No.” Fenris catches his hand and pulls it up to his mouth. “You. Who is so reluctant to keep his opinions to himself.”

“I don’t have opinions.”

“Indeed.” Fenris’ mouth curves into a smirk. “And yet you are forever getting into arguments.” 

“Only with people who are _wrong_ ,” Carver says, and then-- “Oh. Hah. All right, you win. Why do you always have to know _everything_?” he grumbles, and Fenris bites him, grinning wickedly.

“I know much less than everything. But more than you about _some_ things.”

“Some things like _everything_.” He pulls Fenris onto his chest and wraps him up in both arms, holding him there and inhaling the tea smell that is his hair.

They lie like that, and it’s pleasant. Fenris is warm and seems happy to melt around him. Really, he can sleep on anything. Carver’s seen him curl up drunk on the flagstones in front of the hearth. And once, he fell asleep half on and half off the table, and complained when Carver decided to just carry him to bed.

“If you drop me, I swear...” he’d threatened drunkenly. Carver just shut him up with a kiss, and carefully didn’t drop him.

He runs his fingers across Fenris’ scalp, which earns him a thrumming noise that sounds suspiciously like a purr, and he thinks. He is having a thought, but it is a long one, and complex. “You said once that I was like a Templar already,” he says slowly.

“Mmmm. Keep doing that.”

He does. “I guess... I don’t really know what I think. About mages. They’re dangerous. But ... they’re not all bad.” _Bethany_.

“Is it more important for mages to have the freedom to become abominations, or to imprison them to protect the innocent who may suffer at their hands?” Fenris mumbles, nuzzling into Carver’s chest.

“I don’t know. But ... couldn’t someone say the same thing about me? Or you? I mean, _I_ know you’re not going to punch a hole in someone for looking at you sideways,” though actually sometimes he isn’t entirely sure that Fenris won’t do exactly that, “but there’s that _risk_. At least, someone else might think so.”

Fenris twists to frown up at him. “You think I am dangerous.”

“Well, yeah.” Carver shrugs. “You are. But not, you know, dangerous to people who don’t deserve it.”

Fenris huffs and pushes his head back under Carver’s hand, clearly expecting more scratches, which Carver can’t help but think is sodding cute. _So dangerous, and so adorable_.

“Merrill’s all right.”

Carver becomes suddenly aware that the dangerous elf on his chest has gone dangerously still. “She is a blood mage.”

“I know, but--”

“She is a maleficar.”

“I _know_ \--”

“Do you desire her?”

Carver feels like his feet have just gone out from under him. “I ... what?”

“The blood mage. You have a weakness for her.”

It's like he’s wandered into a bog, and every step he takes is just sinking him further. “I ... like Merrill.”

“Yes.” Fenris starts to pull away. “You do.”

Carver tries to hold on to him but Fenris doesn't want to be held and it's awful. “But not … it's not like that.” 

“So you say,” he says, back turned, every bone in his spine showing hard and furious through his skin.

“So I _do_ bloody well say!”

Fenris jerks, twisting around to give him a wild, startled look, and Carver wants very much to grab him and shake him, only you just don't _do_ that to Fenris. Not least of all because he really is dangerous.

“Okay! I did like her the, the way you think. But that was before … and things changed. And I don't 'desire' her. I only … for you. You know that, don't you?” Fenris looks sort of horrified, and Carver suddenly wonders if he's got this all wrong somehow and it makes him feel ill. “You do know that. Don't … isn't that what this is?”

 _Isn't it?_ Now he's not sure, because Fenris is staring at him. Maker, what must his own face look like?

He blinks, turns his face away, and feels wretched. This isn't what he wanted. This whole conversation ran away from him and he didn't mean for it to be like this. He doesn't know how to stop it, either, how to put it back, how to go back to the place where they were happy and comfortable and he could feel Fenris' skin. Back when they could talk and words weren't difficult or painful.

“This is important to you.”

He looks up. “What?”

“This.” Fenris is on his knees now, bedcovers tangled around his legs, and he makes a gesture that encompasses them, the bed, the room. “This … what we do.”

“Yes!” _How could he doubt it?_

Fenris inhales, and breathes out hard through his nose. “And yet you persist in disagreeing with me.”

That … doesn't make any sense. “Well, yeah. I … I have _thoughts_. Of my own.” _Is that wrong?_

But Fenris is nodding, and looking … something. “Good. _Good._ I did not mean to .... Forgive me.”

What? “What?”

Fenris shudders, like he's trying to shake the tension out of his skin. “You are allowed to have your own thoughts.”

“ _Allowed?_ ”

“No, I didn't mean,” and Fenris groans, pushing a hand up into his hair, knotting it in his fingers. “I do not _want_ to control your thoughts. You _should_ disagree with me. It is … I do not own you.”

No, he doesn't, though sometimes Carver thinks … except this isn't about that. This is something else, and whatever it is it isn't what they were arguing about. “So, it's all right if I don't hate Merrill?”

Fenris scowls. “I wish you did.”

“Well, I don't.”

“That is your right,” he says in the level tone that means he doesn't like it but is trying to be reasonable.

Carver tugs the bedcovers, pulling them away from Fenris' legs, which makes Fenris frown. “Are we fighting? I don't want to fight with you.”

“We … are not fighting anymore,” Fenris says, easing himself back down onto the mattress. “This is something about which we will have to simply disagree. In the same way that we disagree about Sebastian Vael.”

Carver frowns. “What does bloody _Sebastian_ have to do with this?”

Fenris raises an eyebrow. “You dislike him.”

“I--” and yeah, Carver really, _really_ dislikes him. “What's your point?”

“And I do not.”

“That's not the same thing.”

“Is it not?” Fenris folds his arms on the pillow and rests his chin on them, looking amused now. “You scowl and glare at him as though he has his hand on a leash around my neck. And yet. You permit the pirate to fondle you and the blood mage to flaunt her heresies in my face. And these things are not the same?”

Carver can't really argue with any of that, except it's _not_ the same, he's sure. “What do you want? For me to make _friends_ with him?”

“I want,” and Fenris pauses, frowning down at the pillow. “I want for you to understand.”

“Understand _Sebastian_?” That's just … no.

“To understand what he is for me.” Fenris shifts, looks uncomfortable, and then buries his face in the pillow until he is only wary eyes and white hair over the edge of it.

Carver can feel his mouth twisting up like he's bitten into a lemon. “I can … talk to him. If you want.”

“I would like that.” It's muffled by the pillow.

“I'll do it,” Carver tells him, thinking that he'd rather punch himself in the face. “For you. If you come back over here.”

Fenris emerges from his pillow, and permits himself to be folded back into Carver's arms. “How it _pains_ you,” he says, mouth open against Carver's chest, but at least he sounds amused now instead of angry.

“Yeah, well. I'll take a little pain, for this.” He'd do a lot of things to keep this. Talking to Sebastian can't be _that_ bad.

Still, it takes him a couple of days to find the resolution to climb the steps to the Chantry and seek Sebastian out.

“Blessings of the Maker.” Sebastian doesn’t even look surprised to see him. “How can I help?”

“I wanted to talk to you about ...” _Fenris,_ “the Chantry.”

Sebastian does look surprised then, eyebrows lifting ever so slightly. “Of course.”

“Fenris comes here a lot, doesn’t he?”

“Is this a conversation about Fenris, or about the Chantry?”

Carver shrugs, wondering how transparent he really is. “Both?”

“There's only so much I can say,” Sebastian tells him, looking very frank, “without breaking the seal of confession.”

Carver makes a face. “I know he comes here. But he never really talks about the Maker. Or Andraste. Or ... any of it.”

Sebastian gives him a long thoughtful look, and nods. “Come, walk with me.”

They walk down a long corridor, through an archway, and out onto a wide balcony decorated with statues on plinths, overlooking the city. Sebastian stops here, resting his hands on the balustrade, and smiles that wide, honest smile of his that Carver has hated so much. 

“He’s a messy one, our Fenris.” 

“How do you mean?”

“Slavery leaves a terrible mark. Orana is proof of that.”

“Who?”

Sebastian blinks at him. “The slave girl we found in the holding caves. I’ve been talking her through her troubles. They are ... deep. But she at least had family, once, was permitted to live with her father, permitted to have relationships of her own choosing and, if it so happened, would have been permitted to keep a child. Families,” he explains, “are often sold together. It makes them easier to control. It is much harder to rebel when you know your child may be punished for it.”

It makes sense. Carver shrugs. “Slavery is _balls_. What’s your point?”

“Fenris did not have even that. His family, his memory, his identity were all taken from him, and he was remade into a weapon, with no identity beyond that you might assign to a bow. Or a sword.” Sebastian spreads his hands. It’s such a casual, graceful gesture that it makes Carver sick. “Now he is discovering that he is a person. He is creating his own identity. And there’s part of him that fears he is still a sword.”

Carver frowns. “That’s shit. I don’t ... no-one should feel like that.” 

“And now, there’s you.” Sebastian gives him a considering look. “He values your companionship. It gives him context for who he is -- Fenris, who is something in relation to Carver Hawke. Fenris, seen through your eyes.”

“I don’t ... what does that even mean?”

Sebastian steeples his hands, touching his fingers to his lips. “He is making himself out of the facets of him that exist in the relationships he has with others. For your brother, he is a valued swordsman. For Anders, an adversary. For Varric, a drinking companion. For me, a penitent. And a friend.” He smiles behind his hands, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It is all more complicated than that, of course, but you follow. All of these things take him further from identifying himself as simply a sword, but nothing so much as his relationship with you.”

Carver shakes his head. “He’s Fenris. He’s not a sword. He’s ... strong, and fast, and clever, and he thinks about things I don’t even understand. He knows about the Qunari, and Tevinter, and Seheron, and he hates slavers and mages and _fish_ , and he doesn’t like people touching him. He knows poetry. He likes apples. He’s fucking _Fenris_ , all right?”

Sebastian's smile is broad and unselfconscious and Carver can’t stand how _perfect_ he is. “Have you told him all of that?”

“No,” Carver scoffs. “I don’t have to. He knows it.”

“He might like to hear it. From _you_.”

Carver doesn't know what to say.

Sebastian, shifts, leans back against a plinth, hands clasped loosely in his lap. He’s like a statue himself, too handsome, too serene, too unreal. “Are you a believer, Carver?”

“Well, _yeah_.” Of course. “We didn’t really.... When I was a kid, we didn’t go much. To the Chantry. There were always Templars and, well.” Family of apostates. Except for his mother. And him.

But he went with his mother, a few times, when the others were learning magic. The statues of Andraste were so _peaceful_. His mother had tried to explain the whole story to him, but it seemed ridiculous. Of _course_ Maferath was angry. How could anyone feel anything but inadequate next to the Maker? It took years for him to get it, and even now he’s not sure he really _gets_ it, only that it’s true, and everything happened for a reason, and things are the way they are.

“I have never seen you here,” Sebastian says gently, “except with Fenris, or your brother. You can ask me anything, about the Chantry, or the Maker, or Andraste.”

They talk. It’s awkward to start with. Carver doesn’t really know what he wants to know, only that he doesn’t know enough about anything to ask the right questions, and he fumbles his way through false-starts and confusions before they get anywhere.

Sebastian, however, has clearly done this before. “But you do believe the Maker watches for those who follow Andraste’s teachings, and welcomes them into His embrace,” he says, and it’s like being guided down a path.

“Yeah.”

“You do not seem convinced.”

“I just ... what good is that, when you’re dead?”

“Would you prefer oblivion?”

“I ... no. But. I just.”

Sebastian leans against the balustrade, and his eyes are so bright, catching the light. “You’re looking for answers.”

This, Carver thinks, is how he does it. He’s handsome, earnest, kind, and patient. And this is what he is to Fenris. And Carver hates it because--

“I see you wandering,” Sebastian says, watching Carver with those _eyes_. “I have seen you seeking for the truth. Of who you are. And what you will become.”

The sun is low on the horizon, and the light is like gold, gilding the hard edges of Sebastian’s armour and sparking fiery highlights in his hair. It’s unfair. How can he be so serene? How does he make that _face_?

“But there's only one person who knows who Carver Hawke is. You.” He smiles, and it’s devastating. “And the only one who knows what Carver Hawke will become is the Maker. But you can find out, if you have patience. All you have to do is be guided by His will, and you’ll find the peace of knowing that you have a purpose, and that you are fulfilling it.”

It sounds ... really good. And like nothing he’s ever had before. “How?”

Sebastian closes his eyes. “‘O Creator, see me kneel, for I walk only where You would bid me.’” He opens them again, and Carver can feel the strength of his faith like the thrust of a spear. “It’s about submission. To the will of the one true god.”

“I don’t ... I don’t even know how to do that. I’m not like you,” Carver argues, because he’s inadequate, again, and it’s not _fair_. “I can’t be bloody perfect, like you. I’m just _me_.”

Sebastian’s smile seems embarrassed. “I’m far from perfect.”

“Really? ‘Cause you hide it really, _really_ well.”

“I’m _not_ perfect,” Sebastian says, and puts a hand on Carver’s shoulder. “But I am also not _you_. And you don’t have to be like me to find peace within yourself. You have your own path, your own purpose. And that’s what makes you special, unique, and worthy of the Maker’s pride in you. Have _faith_. In the Maker, and in yourself.”

“ _How?_ ”

“Repent. Have faith. Be unshaken by the darkness of the world.”

“Repent? How do I _do_ that?”

Sebastian squeezes, fingers warm on Carver's skin. “Well, I can help you with that.”

They talk, and the sun goes down, but Sebastian is still this bright white-clad beacon in the fading light, and Carver wishes he could be as strong and sure and _righteous_. He says as much, and Sebastian, cruelly kind as always, tells him that he can be.


	26. Chapter 26

Garrett has been been gone for a month and a half, and the coin is running out. Gamlen has started making noises about board money, but Carver points out that he's the one paying for all the food, and then he glares a bit, and Gamlen shuts up about it, but it's something to worry over. What if Gamlen decided he wanted his hovel to himself? What would they _do_?

Fenris might let them-- but then Carver stops that thought, because asking his lover (and that's what they are now, Fenris said so and Carver believes him, even though it feels _weird_ ) to let his _mother_ move into his mansion is unspeakable. Plus. Then she'd _know_. He doesn't think he could do the things he does with Fenris if his mother was in the house. The idea is horrible.

Also, he's pretty sure she'd have something to say about the state of the kitchen. And the curtains. And the roof.

If Varric was here-- but he stops that too, because Varric is _not_ here, and might never be here _again_.

Isabela is as helpful as she can be, and as sensitive about it as a brick.

“Come _on_ puppy!”

“No,” he says, cross that she keeps asking. 

Isabela pouts “But it’s so _boring_ to drink alone.”

“I don’t have any money,” he admits, frowning. “I gave it all to my mother.”

Because. She needed it. For food. Maker, they’re lucky Garrett took Duchess with him otherwise they’d be spending half their coin on keeping her fed. (Should it bother him that he’s worried more about Duchess than his brother? No. No, that’s all right. Right?)

“I’ll stand you a drink,” Isabela insists. “Come _on_.”

“It’s a waste of coin,” he tells her, and thinking of how much money he’s let spill through his fingers since they landed in Kirkwall makes him feel a little sick.

She frowns. “If you need _coin_ , puppy, why don’t we go get some?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” and she grins, “there’s always barrels and things left unattended down the docks. Why don’t we saunter down and pick one up?”

“That’s _stealing_ ,” Carver says.

“Sweet thing, you’re talking to someone who financed herself for an entire year solely by picking pockets.” She shrugs. “So it’s theft. So what? If it bothers you, let’s find someone we don’t like, and take _their_ stuff. What do you say to that, eh?”

“I don’t think I should,” Carver says slowly. Though. It’s tempting. “I’m pretty sure Aveline would disapprove.”

“Oh, the big girl can cope with it in her big girl _pants_ ,” Isabela scoffs. “Anyway, she’s not around. She’ll never know. Come on, I want a _drink_ and if you won’t let me buy you one, let’s go make someone _else_ buy us one. Deal?”

He tells himself that she talked him into it.

Later, he feels like it's still just stealing.

It makes him hot and angry inside, and he thinks about the merchant whose goods they took, and his customers, and the guards they didn't kill but who will definitely get the blame for this. It doesn't matter that the merchant is crooked, that he inflates his prices and lies about the quality of his merchandise, that he bullies his workers and hates elves, that he scatters bastard children across Thedas and never takes care of them -- all the things Isabela told him to convince him that this was someone who deserved to have his goods walk out from under his nose. That doesn't matter. It's still just _wrong_.

 _'Those who steal from their brothers and sisters do harm to their livelihood and to their peace of mind.'_ Transfigurations, number something, whatever.

He's never really understood that quite so much as he does now, and he feels rotten.

Isabela punches him cheerfully in the shoulder and buys a round of drinks, and then skips off to play a game with a one-legged mercenary that seems to involve knives and blindfolds, and Carver really doesn't want to see how that one turns out. He's pretty much superfluous, after all that. Why she wanted him to come with her at all is beyond him; it's not like she has trouble making new friends.

At least Merrill is here. They talk, circling around the topic of morality until he manages to express how uncomfortable he feels.

“Have you ever done something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but later you thought maybe it wasn't?”

Merrill fidgets, drumming both fingers on her cup. “Of course I have. Everybody has. It's perfectly normal. Why? Did you think it wasn't?”

“I mean,” and he leans his chin on his fist and tries to work this out. “Something you knew was wrong. But you did it anyway. But it wasn't, you know, for _you_ it was for someone else. Someone you cared about. But, you knew that if they found out what you'd done they wouldn't be … they wouldn't have wanted it. No matter how much it helped.”

Merrill bites her lip, looking anxious. “Oh, Carver--” and then she stops.

He swirls his drink around in his cup, thinking. It wasn't the right thing to do. How is he going to tell his mother? No, he can't tell her. If she asks where the money came from he'll just … maybe she won't ask. Urgh. This is shit. “It was the wrong thing to do,” he mutters, and Merrill knocks over her drink, spilling the dregs across the table.

“I'm _sorry_!” She's clasping her hands together and, oh, she looks _hurt_ , as if he's hit her, which he would never do, not _ever_. “I'm so, so sorry, Carver, I didn't know what else to do!”

What? “Merrill--”

“You were so sad, and I wanted to help. And I knew you wouldn't like it. I knew it. I shouldn't have, but I--” she presses her hands to her mouth, and she looks frightened, which is so _wrong_.

“Merrill, what are you--”

“It was just a little,” she whispers. “Just a tiny little bit. I had to, you see, because it was the only way. I just wanted to _help_.”

“Merrill!” He bangs the flat of his palm down on the table to get her attention, and immediately regrets it because she flinches. “What did you _do_?”

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “You were asleep, and I thought if I could see what was troubling you I could … fix it.”

He doesn't know what she's talking about, but there's a tight, sick feeling in his stomach because this sounds _bad_. “Go on.”

“So I looked. Peeked, really. I couldn't do much because I'm not a, a Dreamer. But I can look. And you were so unhappy, in your head. It was … I'm sorry.”

He goes cold. “You looked in my head? You … you used magic on me to look in my _head_?”

“I was trying to help!”

“You spied on me, inside my _head_?!” She flinches again and he tries to string everything she's said together, tries to cut through the babbling and the excuses and just _understand_. “You … did you use blood magic on me?” he demands, keeping his voice low because they are in a tavern and talking about _this_ and it's making his head spin.

He can tell the answer is 'yes' just from her face. “It was just a little. Only a few drops, really.”

“Was it _mine_?”

“No! Oh, no, Carver, I would never--”

“Really? _Really?_ ” She stops, staring at him. “Would you really 'never', Merrill? Maker's _breath!_ ” He presses his fingers to his temples, not looking at her because he doesn't trust himself not to scream. “I can't believe you … in my _mind!_ How could you? What … what did you see?”

“Nothing,” she says, in a small, squeaky, _lying_ voice. “I didn't really see anything. I … really.”

No. “What. Did you _see_?”

She's flustered. He can see it. She flutters her hands like birds and it would be so easy to break them, and the thought fills him with self-hatred because is that what he is? Someone who gets angry and hurts people? People who betray him, but people anyway and, most of all, people he _cares_ about?

“I saw that … something happened. With Fenris. And that you miss your sister. And … you're worried about your brother becoming a monster. And he's not, Carver, he's not, and your father really loved you--”

“You saw my _father_?” That's it. That is fucking _it_. He shoves back his chair. 

“Carver, I'm sorry! I was only trying to help!”

“No, you bloody listen to me,” and he's leaning down, fists hard against the table, and somewhere he can hear Isabela asking if everything's all right, which it completely isn't. Merrill's eyes are like pools, wet and glistening and, yeah, she looks sorry, but it's too late for that. “You tell me you know what you're doing and that everyone should stop worrying about you. But then you do something like this, and _this_ is why everyone's worried. Because people need to be protected. From people like _you_.”

Merrill gasps and Isabela sounds shocked, but Carver doesn't care.

He leaves them there, and his anger sustains him most of the way home, but then he stops because, oh, Merrill. _Why?_ Why would she do that? 

He trusted her.

He shouldn't have trusted her.

Fenris was right.

He feels like a fool, dragging his feet all the way to Gamlen's, where his mother is sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of that horrible bark-tea next to her, which has long since gone cold. Carver gives her the money he wishes he didn't have, but can't tell her where it came from, and it's like he's rotten, right through.

His mother takes the coin, looks at it, and nods, the lines around her eyes deep and worrying. 

She's so quiet. “Mother?”

“I'm sorry. I was thinking of your brother.”

Of course she was.

“He’s not coming back, is he?”

He hates that hitch in her voice, that _break_ , and he can’t bear the sight or the sound of his mother crying. It wounds him. There’s nothing he can do to stop it because he can’t lie to her and no, he doesn’t think Garrett is coming back. And that wounds him too in a way he didn’t know it would. His brother, gone. His sister, gone. His father, gone. And now just the two of them and Gamlen. His favourite uncle, because Gamlen is his _only_ uncle.

His mother's hands are so worn. He holds them between his own, these big, heavy hands that are too thick-fingered for magic, or lock-picking, or archery, useless for anything except throwing his weight behind a sword. He holds her hands, clasps them together, knees on the floor like he’s praying, like maybe they’re praying together.

He isn’t.

Maybe he should.

What does Sebastian say? _Maker protect you_. It sounds so small.

_Maker protect you, Garrett. Come home. Bring Duchess. Don’t be dead._

And then he thinks, because that was a prayer to _Garrett_ and not to the Maker.

He dredges up what he knows, what Sebastian has told him, what he believes, and tries again. _O Maker, please watch over my brother, and bring him home. And if it's too late,_ because he is almost sure it is, _please shelter and protect his spirit._ There. That's the best he can do.

“We’ll be all right,” he says out loud. “I’ll take care of you. I can do it. Don’t worry.”

“Carver, darling.” Her eyes are wet. “Don’t be glad about this.”

“I’m not!” He’s shocked. “I ... _Mother_.”

“Oh, my baby boy...” She frees one of her hands to push his hair up off his brow. “You always wanted to be the big man. Even when you were little. You were _so_ happy when you grew taller than Garrett.” She takes a breath, and she’s this close, he knows it, anything more and she’ll start sobbing and he’ll have to watch.

“Don’t,” he says, leaning into her hand. “Please don’t.”

“I remember how you hated wearing his hand-me-downs. And the first time I made you your own trousers. You wore them until they were just patches, held together with more patches.”

He remembers. And he remembers how Garrett teased him, and how Bethany didn’t.

“I was so worried when you left.” She isn’t really talking to him, and he knows it. She just needs to talk. “Bethany cried. And Garrett moped around for days. He pretended not to care, but I know he did. I think he envied you. He would have gone too, you know.” She bites her lip. “I was terrified you’d never come home. I didn’t think ... and now it’s just ...”

She’s so small. He remembers when she was big enough for him to sit in her lap, and now he can fold her up against his chest, and she cries into his shirt and it _hurts_.

He’ll take care of her. He has to. Even if she doesn't believe in him. It’s what Father would have wanted.

In the morning, he goes to the Gallows.

The recruitment officer is gruff with him. “Any experience?”

“I was in the Ferelden army,” he says, and then, when the man squints at him he adds, “And the Red Iron, for a year.” _And I’ve killed a lot of people, but they pretty much deserved it._

“Got a letter of recommendation?”

“From Meeran?” If there was one, Garrett has it. “Do I need to?”

He does, it seems, and one from the Chantry. Meeran is easy enough to find, and he scrawls out a note with a bad grace, grousing that Carver should come back to the Red Iron instead of joining the 'shit-eating Templars'. Carver shrugs. He's killed too many mercenaries now to feel confident about doing that kind of work again. Dying for someone else's money. It's not worth it.

The second letter is harder. He knows he's going to have to ask Sebastian, and he really doesn't want to. He can't tell if Sebastian is really _real_ or an elaborate fiction. How could anyone be so constantly bleeding _nice_?

But, he goes, and Sebastian happily writes him a recommendation. “I'm pleased,” he says, and Carver hates how neat his handwriting is, how crisp and elegant. It's just typical. “The role of defender of the faith will suit you very well. I wish you luck.”

“I won't need luck,” Carver tells him. “I'm relying on skill.”

“You are a fine swordsman,” Sebastian assures him, signing his name with far too many curly twists for Carver's taste. “Walk in the light of the Maker, Hawke.”

The letters are acceptable, in fact Sebastian's letter carries a lot of weight; the recommendation of a prince is apparently worth more than he thought. Which makes sense, but is damn annoying. The Knight Captain comes out to see it. He seems impressed, and then instructs Carver to square up against some of the recruits, and show them all what he's made of.

Carver puts the first recruit on his back, disarms the second and the third, and gives the fourth what looks like a concussion, but the fifth, a woman with a cocky twist to her mouth, manages to catch him a nasty wallop on the elbow that sends pain shooting down his arm and makes it hard to hold his weapon up.

She smirks. He scowls. If that had been a real sword, instead of wood wrapped in cloth, she'd have taken his arm off.

“All right, that's enough.” The Knight Captain eyes them both. “That was good. Paxley, you're anticipating better but you need to be careful about feints. Hugh, I don't know where you picked up that stop-thrust, but I like it. Nice work, Ruvena. Watch your feet.” 

He folds his arms, sizing Carver up, and he looks tired but there's something in his eyes that burns. This, Carver thinks, is a man who has a purpose, and is fulfilling it, and Carver wants that so suddenly and so hard that it makes him ache.

“What was your name again?”

“Hawke. Carver Hawke.”

“Knight Captain Cullen,” he says, holding out one gauntleted hand. “Welcome to the Order.”

It’s remarkably simple after that. Recruits aren’t really Templars, he finds out, just wannabe Templars. Not all of them make it. The drop-out rate is high. When he signs his name in the ledger he sees rows of names with a line through them -- recruits who left, or were found wanting. _Or died_ , he thinks, because that sort of thing happens all the time.

But mostly they're found wanting. “You have to prove yourself worthy,” he’s told, and that makes sense.

Everyone outside of the Order, though, only sees the armour.

It’s big and heavy. The armour they give recruits isn't actually very good. He figures it's to stop people from joining up and then legging it, flogging the stuff on the black market. 

The woman with the cocky mouth helps him try it on, taking him through the laborious sequence of buckles. “You'll get the hang of it eventually,” she says. “Or, you won't.” It takes a while, and then she steps back, giving him an approving nod. “Suits you. Not all the lads can pull off a skirt,” and she smirks in a way that makes it clear exactly how much fun she's making of him.

“Oh, _thanks_.” He works his shoulders, feeling a little weird about being so completely covered in metal. And the robe is sort of … feminine. He tries drawing his sword; it's awkward. He's going to have to practice.

“You should go for a walk in it,” Ruvena suggests. “See how it feels. People look at you differently, you know. They see the armour and then,” she snaps her fingers, “you're just a Templar, not a person. It's got its good sides. And its bad sides. Like everything.”

It's amazing how true it is. Even just wandering about the Gallows courtyard he can feel the way people look-but-don't-look at him, seeing the glint of sun on armour and not _him_ at all.

Ruvena takes him to the barracks, shows him a bunk, and a shelf, and a hook, which are all his. 

“You've got three days,” she tells him, “to kiss your life goodbye. If you don't turn up back here by sundown on the day after the day after tomorrow, we'll come find you. Try not to screw it up.”

Three days. It suddenly doesn't seem long enough.

He changes into his own clothes and heads back into Kirkwall, and when he tells Fenris what he's done Fenris is surprised, but pleased, and suggests they have a drink to celebrate.

“And what,” Carver asks, “would you have been celebrating if I _hadn't_ joined the Templars today?” Because Fenris doesn't ever need an excuse.

Fenris shrugs, opens a bottle of wine, smirking. “That we are still alive.”

They drink the wine, and then do something Carver is starting to think of as lovemaking, rather than just sex, and then they lie together and Carver stares at the darkening sky through the holes in the roof. “Fenris, you have to fix that. Winter is coming and you'll _freeze_.”

Fenris snorts. “I _will_ freeze. Since you are determined to leave me behind, cold and alone in this bed.”

“Just to spite me, hey?” 

“Yes.” Fenris sits up, stretches, and Carver catches him around the waist, pulling him off balance and down into the mess of bedcovers, and Fenris splutters a protest in a language Carver still doesn't know. They wrestle, and it's a game but a semi-serious one, neither of them very willing to concede defeat, nor willing to hurt the other, and in the end Carver lets Fenris pin his hands to the bed because he, at least, doesn't mind being held down.

“I'm coming back, you know,” Carver tells him. “I get days off, and nights off, and I won't always be away.”

“I will find _some_ way to fill my time.” Fenris settles down against him, still holding his wrists to the mattress. “Perhaps I will contemplate the Maker.”

Carver makes a face. “Try not to spend too much time with bloody Sebastian,” he grumbles.

Fenris looks amused. “You are _jealous_.”

“I'm not.”

“Of a man wedded to Andraste.”

Put like that, it does sound ridiculous.

“I will miss you.”

Carver grins. “I'll write to you.”

Fenris frowns. “I … don't.”

“Don't what?”

“You need not write to me.”

“I'm _going_ to,” Carver says, freeing one of his hands to rub his fingertips against Fenris' scalp the way he knows Fenris likes. “Don't expect much, though. I mean, Bethany was always good at letters but I'm not a _girl_.”

Fenris is quiet after that, which Carver chalks up to sleepiness and head-scratches, and he watches the sky, and the stars that are so much dimmer in Kirkwall than they ever were in Ferelden.

It feels good to have a plan. His own plan. All his.

Things are going to be fine.


	27. Chapter 27

_Dear Fenris,_

_It is not bad in the Gallows. The food is a damn sight better than you get in Lowtown but still it is pretty average._

_Every day we do Contemplation. You are supposed to think about your Relationship with the Maker and kneel on the floor with your eyes shut and it is harder than it sounds because I do not really know what I should be thinking about and anyway it is boring._

_I like it here because everyone knows what they are supposed to do and you do it without having to think too much, but sometimes the instructors ask you questions and you have to come up with answers on the spot which is tricky sometimes._

_That is all for now I will write to you again._

_Yours,_

_Carver Hawke_

_Dear Fenris,_

_I think of the recruits I might be the best fighter out of them but that is not enough, you have to know the Chant of Light and be able to answer questions and have opinions about things such as the dissonant verses and such._

_There are a lot of Tranquil, I did not think there would be so many. I do not have much to do with the mages here but I see a lot of Tranquil because they do all the boring important tasks such as delivering messages and organising the library and making potions and so on. They give me the shudders so I avoid them whenever I can which is not often._

_I look forward to seeing you when I get a free day or some time or any thing, I will come see you first._

_I was not expecting a gift, so it was a surprise but the good kind. I do not know when I will need a scarf but it will come in handy I am sure._

_Yours,_

_Carver_

_Fenris,_

_I think I have made some friends. Paxley has a moustache, it is utterly stupid and makes him look stupid but he would not be Paxley without it. I thought about growing a beard maybe like the Knight Captain._

_Knight Captain Cullen is incredible. I never met anyone like him. People say he has the Light of the Maker in his eyes(?) and when he says you did something right you know it was right. He comes down to the training yard sometimes and picks out people to praise or correct or which ever, and when he chooses me I feel like all the hard work is really worth it._

_Thankyou for the chestnuts, we roasted them and ate them. It reminded me of Lothering._

_Yours,_

_Hawke_

_Fenris_

_So I guess that you know I saw Sebastian Vael today. He is very popular in the Gallows of course, and now Ruvena will not shut up about him which is annoying and boring._

_We talked about the Canticle of Benedictions and where it says ‘Blessed are the Peacekeepers, the Champions of the Just’. Sebastian said I should use it for Contemplation so I have something to focus on, and I might maybe I haven’t decided._

_He gave me your gift, thankyou. I can’t decide if it is a dog or a wolf but I think it is a wild dog or maybe half wolf and half dog, but I like it eitherway._

_I’ll have a free day soon. I will tell you when._

_C Hawke_

_F_

_I have a free day in two days! That is to say, counting tomorrow as the first day I will be free on the third day. I’ll come see you._

_CH_

_PS What am I supposed to do with a toy mouse? I think these are for cats._

_Dear Carver,_

_I will gladly see you when you are free._

_Please feel welcome to visit me any time._

_You are often in my thoughts._

_Yours faithfully,_

_Fenris_

 

Carver stares at the paper, and he can’t quite believe what he thinks he’s seeing. He’s never seen Fenris’ handwriting before, but he has seen _this_ handwriting before. He recognises it, and the recognition sinks his stomach into his boots.

“Plans for tomorrow, Hawke?”

Paxley’s stupid moustache looms into view, and Carver crushes the letter in his hand, holding it against his chest. “What?”

“For the free day!” Paxley leans up against the wall. “Some of the lads are going to the Blooming Rose.”

Carver frowns. “What, together? Isn’t that sort of ... weird?”

“I don’t know. I’m not going. I’m visiting my mother.” Paxley flushes a little, and holds his chin up as if he’s daring Carver to laugh.

“Well, I’m going to visit my mother too,” Carver says, because it’s true, he will, and he should really take her a present. But. First. He’s heading for the Chantry.

The next morning -- “What the bleeding hell is this?” He shoves the paper under Sebastian’s nose.

Sebastian gives him and it a narrow look. “A letter from Fenris. And a good morning to you, Hawke.”

“And you’ve never seen it before, I suppose?” He is _so_ angry.

“On the contrary,” Sebastian says, coolly neutral. “I wrote it for him.”

Well. That wasn’t what Carver was expecting. “Why would you do that? Have you been reading my letters?”

“I _did_ read them. Once. Because Fenris requested that I do so.” Sebastian keeps his voice very low. “And I wrote that letter, as dictated by him.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Sebastian sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Because he could not do it himself.”

“Why _not?_ ”

“Because he cannot _read_ , Hawke.”

Oh. “What do you mean?”

“He was a slave.” Sebastian folds his arms, frowning. “It is undesirable for a slave to be able to read. This is another way to render them helpless. In any case, you are lucky to have the ability yourself. Are you aware how lucky?” 

Sebastian holds up a hand, ticking off points on his fingers. 

“Your home may have seemed humble, but your mother is of noble birth, and had the advantage of an education. Also, your brother tells me that your father served in the Circle for a time -- Circle Mages are all taught to read, if they do not know how already. In your family, with your parents, of course you learned your letters. But do you think that everyone in Lowtown can read? Or in Darktown? Why do you think Anders uses a lantern as the sign for his clinic? And, when you served in the army, did you not notice how instructions are passed on verbally, drilled in through repetition, rather than written anywhere?”

It makes sense. Carver feels foolish. He thinks about how the recruitment officer had asked him if he could read, and Carver had scoffed because _of course_ he could read, and between that and the note from Sebastian and the fact that he’d been in live combat for years now, no wonder they’d just let him join up. Paxley said he’d trained for five years before they let him in. Carver had just assumed that he, Carver, was better. And he is. But maybe not for the reasons he thought.

“Oh.” He should apologise. “Um.” He really should apologise. “Sorry.”

“Oh?” Sebastian smiles at him, raising an eyebrow, and Carver remembers why he hates him so much.

“I thought … and I … I'm sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Sebastian says, gripping him by the elbow in what seems like is supposed to be a reassuring way. “But, I think there are better places for you to be right now, than here apologising to me.”

There are.

Carver thumps on Fenris' door, not really expecting an answer, and throws it open. The door bangs against the inside jamb and leaps back, and Carver has to catch it in one hand or catch it in the nose. He shoves it closed behind him and yells up the stairs. “Hey! Fenris! Um. It's Carver! I hope you're decent!” He pauses. “Actually, I hope you're _not!_ ”

It occurs to him, as he bounds up the stairs, that it might have been a bad idea to yell that, in the event that Fenris has guests, but _hell_. Fenris _never_ has guests.

And this time he's right. Fenris is curled up in a chair near the hearth, which is cold now, coals lying low and dormant, and he sits up when Carver rushes through the doorway.

Carver skids to a stop. There he is. All this time and all he has wanted is to grab Fenris and just _kiss_ him -- and all the other things -- but now? The Fenris who existed in his mind (“Carver, I have missed you. Come with me to the bed so that I can show you how much...”) is just a fantasy, and the real Fenris, in front of him, looks different, real and solid and wonderful, and Carver feels suddenly shy. “Um,” he says. Eloquently. “Hey...”

The Fenris-who-does-not-exist-in-his-mind unfurls and crosses the room, hands held awkwardly at his sides. “You came.”

Of _course_ he came. Where else was he going to go? “I said I would.” And he meant it.

Fenris shifts his weight onto his back foot. It's a fighting stance, a beginning to something aggressive, and Carver feels his body shift in response. _Is he going to attack me? Why would he_ do _that?_

Carver unslings the duffel full of his old armour and clothes, and drops it to the floor. _Okay._

Fenris takes a tentative step forward. “I have waited all day.”

It's still early. Not yet noon. Carver can feel a grin tug at the corner of his mouth. “When did the day start for you?”

“Dawn,” Fenris says, his hands twitching. “Maybe … a little before that.”

The grin is out of control. “Did you wake up in the dark and wait for me?”

Fenris scowls. “Do you believe the whole of creation revolves around you?”

“Today, yeah,” and Carver holds out a hand. Fenris eyes it with what Carver decides is suspicion, and then he flows forward, all elven grace and _Fenris_ , catching Carver's hand and pulling it up against his mouth, eyes closed, and Carver breathes out a sigh because _this_ is what he's wanted, what he's been thinking of in all the empty moments of his now regimented and quite often boring life.

He slings his other arm around Fenris' waist and tugs him in, burying his face in all that white, sweet-smelling hair, and just inhales him.

“I missed you.”

Fenris closes his teeth on one of Carver's knuckles. “And I, also.”

“Mmmmmm.” It would be perfect, completely perfect, if not for the thing at the back of his mind that pokes at him, relentlessly. “Fenris...”

“Hawke.”

Carver frowns against Fenris' ear. “...I've been writing to you.”

There. That stiffness. They both know. Fenris stays where he is, stiff and still like an elf made of wax. “Yes.”

“And I've liked the things you sent me, I really have...”

Now the wax elf is pulling away, frowning, and Carver has never seen this look on his face, this awkward unhappiness. “But?”

“But,” Carver says, capturing both of Fenris' hands and, Maker, he's glad no-one's wearing their gauntlets right now. “You … I ...”

“You.” Fenris glares at him, and tries to extract his hands but Carver holds on.

“Why didn't you tell me you didn't know how to read?”

Fenris' face curls into a snarl. “And what makes you think I --” but then he shakes his head. “Why does it matter?”

“It doesn't,” Carver says, tugging at him. “It _doesn't_ , except that I didn't know and … I didn't know you'd … well. If I'd known, I would ...”

There. He stops and looks up, frowning but not glaring, which is definitely better. “You would have...?”

Carver makes a face. “Done things differently?”

Fenris huffs, turning his face away so that Carver can't see him, and it's not right, but it's not all wrong, and Carver tries to duck down and look him in the eyes. 

“Fenris.”

“It is not important.”

Such a stiff little voice, so deep and so … defensive. “You know. I don't like you any less. I just … maybe I would have … written shorter letters.”

That's a chuckle, maybe, or a laugh, sort of choked off at the end, and Fenris looks up at him, eyes glittering. “Would you?” His mouth twists into a thin smirk. “I cannot imagine you censoring the things you have to say.”

What does that -- “Hey!” Carver pulls Fenris up hard, looping both arms around him. “Did you just call me chatty?” He puts on his best glare. “Because I'm not the one who's always _talking_.”

“Yes,” Fenris breathes, pushing himself up against Carver's chest to find his mouth. “Yes, you are.”

Carver would argue. But. There's all this elf in his mouth.

He runs his tongue along Fenris' lip, and he tastes of salt and bread and spices. It's all good.

“Mmmph. I don't … mmm … have to write to you, if you don't want,” Carver mumbles, feeling blissful. “You don't … mmmph, have to show _Sebastian_...”

Fenris leans back, looks at him, and blinks. “That is ... the real reason. That it bothers you.”

“Well, of course,” Carver growls, but then Fenris is kissing him again and he really has nothing to say.

A little later, breathless and pink in the face, Fenris licks his lips and murmurs, “Do not cease writing to me.”

“Ok,” Carver agrees, not sure why. “But, if you can't read it, what's the point?”

Fenris' eyes are so huge and bright that it's like staring into the sun. “I will learn.”

And then. It's like he never left.

“I can't stay,” he says, after, pressing his mouth against Fenris' beautiful, naked shoulder.

“ _Why?_ ” It sounds so cross Carver can't help his chuckle, and he rolls Fenris over, pushing his face into the side of Fenris' neck and sucking hard enough to (hopefully) leave a mark. “Augh! Stop that!”

“I have to visit my _mother_ ,” Carver tells him, and Fenris accepts this, though he does it with a bad grace, making it difficult for Carver to get up, and even more difficult for him to dress, tangling elf hands in his clothes and pulling them inside out and sideways. “I'll come back! I promise. Stop being childish.”

“I am _not_ childish,” Fenris grumbles, unhooking Carver's belt and pulling it free of his trousers. “I am simply unready to give you up just yet.”

“Yeah,” Carver says, retrieving his belt and threading it back through his belt-loops. “That's probably the definition of childish. I'll come _back_ ,” he says again, yanking Fenris up into a kiss. Fenris bites him. It's just right. “Okay? I'll be back in, I dunno, a couple of hours? I _swear_.”

“Very well,” Fenris sinks back under the covers, looking stubborn. “As you have promised.”

“Want me to bring anything? Bread? _Wine?_ Something?”

“I have sufficient bread, wine and 'something',” Fenris scoffs, and Carver laughs, kisses the top of his head, and backs away from the bed before he can be pulled down again.

“Then I'll see you soon.”

It's not far to Lowtown, but he feels like he's walking away from something _better_ , like he's going the wrong way only, only he really should visit his mother. He should. That's what a good son would do.

Especially given how his mother had taken it when he left, again.

She took it poorly, to say the least. There were a lot of tears, and you'd think he was dying the way she carried on, but Carver managed to be resolute. He'd signed his name, and while he hadn't made any oaths (yet) and he _could_ leave, it would have shut that door forever.

“Everything will be _fine_ , mother. You've enough coin to last until I'm paid. It won't be a lot, but it's regular. And it's honest.” Which is more than he could have said before.

“But, the Templars? They've always been the enemy,” she said, clutching his wrist. “I've spent so long thinking of them that way, and now …” she shook her head. “I suppose there are none of us left with anything to fear from them.”

That had hurt.

“Tell me,” she pleaded, searching his face with her eyes, “that you aren't doing this to spite your brother. If … if he comes home.”

“This has nothing to do with Garrett,” he told her, and it was true. Maybe, once, it wouldn't have been, but right then? No. “I'll visit, when I can. And I'll write. And if anything happens and you can't get hold of me, go to Fenris, all right? Or Isabela. Or,” he grit his teeth, “Sebastian Vael. He's a Brother in the Chantry. And he's a self-righteous bastard but he'll _help_.”

“Don't say 'bastard',” she said, frowning. “Oh, sweetheart. Don't do this.”

“It's already done.”

And now. He stops to buy flowers (a paltry bunch of daisies from a girl with more patches in her skirt than skirt) for his mother because she deserves then and then he's loping down the stairs, turning a corner or two, and there are the steps up to Gamlen's, and here's the door, and he throws it open because he's _home_ , even if it doesn't feel like home, because Mother is here and he has so much to tell her.

“Mother! I brought you--”

And there, like a ghost, is Garrett. He looks worn, and thin, but alive, _Thank the Maker!_ and the relief is like coming up for air.

“Garrett,” he breathes, and then he can't say anything more because, well, it's _Garrett_.

His brother jerks, starts to get up and then seems to think better of it. “Carver,” he says, and there's so much in it that Carver can't work out what his brother wants to tell him. It's like they're strangers, which isn't right. 

He takes a step forward. “I'm--” _glad to see you, glad you're alive, glad, glad, glad,_ but he can't say any of that. “You're here.”

“I am.” Garrett settles back into his chair, sips his tea (of course he's drinking tea; where is Mother? she needs to be here for this or something will _happen_ ).

Carver doesn't know what to say, or do, so he clutches his flowers and frowns. “Where's Mother, I--”

“She went out. She's coming back,” Garrett says, and he cradles his cup in his hands, protecting it carefully.

Carver has so much to say, and he can't say any of it. “I thought you weren't coming back.”

Garrett laughs, setting down his cup. “I'm sure you would have liked that.”

No. Not even a little. This is his _brother_ , and Carver feels so glad he's home that it makes him weak at the knees and he has to grab the back of a chair to steady himself. “Not really,” he says out loud, which is not enough at all.

“Well, I tried to bury myself, but unluckily for you I wasn't very good at it,” and Garrett grins, and it's not _his_ grin, it's something he's trying to do but it looks awful.

“How was it, then?” Carver wants to say other things, like, _I missed you,_ and, _I was worried,_ and, _Maker, you came_ home _, I'm so glad,_ but none of the words form up in his mouth and he can't make them.

“Oh, you know. Demons and darkspawn and _death_.” 

He grins, a death's-head, and Carver winces. It's his fault, if he'd been there then his brother would have been all right, he's sure of it, but--

“It was lucrative, at least,” and he shrugs, all bony shoulders and confidence, and Carver can feel the anger rise up in him because Garrett is making light of this, is pretending everything is okay, when it's not, it really isn't.

“So you're flush, now?”

“More than.” Garrett makes an expansive gesture with both hands. “We definitely don't have to worry about money. Probably, ever.”

And. Carver thinks. How much of what he's done comes down to _money_? Some of it. And now? All of that was _worthless_. “Right.”

Garrett runs his fingers through his stupid beard, watching and considering. “I hear you joined the Templars.”

“I have.”

“I'm sure you thought about that a _lot_.”

It's unfair. Carver _did_ think about it, but now? Garrett's going to make it a stupid, hot-headed decision and Carver won't be able to defend it because it shouldn't _need_ defending, it was his _choice_ and his brother had _nothing_ to do with it. It isn't his. It belongs to Carver, and he won't take it back.

“I suppose that was Fenris's idea.”

No. So very much no. But. “Not really,” Carver says, knowing how sullen he sounds. _Stop trying to take this away from me._

“Oh? Because, given his thoughts on mages,” and Garrett twitches his fingers, a little fiery bit of blue sparking against his fingertips, “I would have thought he'd be all for it.”

“He didn't have anything to do with it.” Mostly true or, at least, true enough.

Garrett looks at him. Carver can't stand the weight of his brother's eyes.

“What?”

Garrett sighs. 

Carver looks down and -- “Where's Duchess?”

Garrett doesn't move, except for his hands, that twitch, and Carver _knows_. “She's with Aveline. Chasing rabbits.”

“What?!” It's such a lie, and then Garrett slumps, one hand hooked against the edge of the table, and Carver doesn't want to hear any more but he has no choice.

“Good thing you didn't come with us.” 

Oh! Carver hates him for it, hates the idea that Garrett didn't need him and then -- 

“I couldn't have lost you.”

What? “What?” Carver doesn't understand, and he holds his breath, waiting for his big brother to tell him.

“Aveline went down,” Garrett says, rubbing his fingers up against his face. “I didn't even see it, and then, hours later she started to flag and Anders … Anders said it was the taint, and I--” Garrett presses the heels of his hands into his eyesockets and it's _painful_. “So we met up with the Grey Wardens and … Maker, it was hard. It was bad enough, but I -- I couldn't have done that to you. I couldn't. But. In the end, I didn't have to.”

Carver doesn't know what to say. “I,” he says, and that's it, that's everything he has.

“Mother was right.” Garrett looks up at him over his hands, and holds them out, like he's seeking something Carver doesn't know how to give. “Maybe, if you'd been with us, then maybe … I'm so glad, Carver, that I didn't have to do that. I couldn't. I couldn't do that to Mother, after everything. I couldn't let you go.”

He can barely speak. “What did you do?”

“I gave her to them.” Garrett sucks in a breath, ragged and hopeless and _not_ Garrett. “I _gave_ her away. And all I could think was that if it had been _you_...” He shakes himself, and he _laughs_ , and Carver hates it. “You know, the whole time I kept thinking, every time she did or said the things she … said. I thought of you, and I was _glad_. Because.” He looks up, and there's something there, something Carver can't process. Anger? Hate? Hope? It's not clear. “I didn't think you could. And really, the whole time, it was me who --”

Carver snaps. “You didn't think I could _do it_?”

“No, that isn't what I--”

“Fucking _hell_ , Garrett!”

His brother lurches out of his chair, his broad bony hand closing on Carver's arm. “I won't lose you!” His eyes are _fire_.

It's terrible.

“Brother!”

Garrett's grip is like iron, and Carver won't let him see it, he _won't_ , no matter how painful it is. “Whatever you've done, I don't--”

“What _I've_ done?” Carver tries to wrench himself away but Garrett is inexorable. “All I've done is try to do _everything_ , tried to keep things _together_!”

Garrett's face twists. He's fighting, and Carver isn't sure what he's fighting, but it might be him and it might not, and he doesn't care because Garrett is being Garrett again and it's more than he can bear.

“You went! And I tried to be--” _to be you,_ “everything! For everyone!”

His brother squeezes, and Carver can feel the magic under his skin. “For everyone? Or just for _Fenris?_ ”

It's not fair. How can he argue with that? He's tried so hard, and it's not enough, or maybe just enough, and now Garrett is back with his pockets full of treasure and promises _again_.

“Carver,” Garrett says, and it _hurts_ , it hurts, and Carver can't do this, not now and maybe not _ever_.

He pulls away, and now Garrett lets him, his hand falling, and his eyes, his eyes... “I won't.”

“You won't what?”

“I won't let you make everything pointless!”

“Carver!” and Garrett reaches for him again. “You can stop, now, and we can do this together!”

“No!”

They tussle -- that is what this is, a stupid pointless tussle between brothers but it's _everything_ , and Carver wrenches himself away because he is the stronger one, has been for years, and Garrett doesn't use magic to make him stay.

“This is my choice!” Carver shouts it because he means it, even if the reasons are muted now, irrelevant when Garrett has so much gold to throw around, to take care of Mother, and Carver doesn't need to do the things he's decided to do. But. He will. He _made_ a _decision_. “This is what I want!”

“Don't, please don't--”

“I _will!_ ” He throws down his stupid flowers and the meagre purse of silver he earned, that he _earned_ , didn't steal or find or _pillage_ from the bones of the long dead. “This is what I want!”

And Garrett lets him go.

He staggers out of the house, through the crowds, up the steps, and he falls, inside the door of a house he knows, where he feels safe, and presses his hands to his eyes because _this_ is where he should be, this is where he _is_ , and where nothing can go wrong.

“Hawke?”

No. He won't. He's okay, for a moment, just here, just holding off everything with the strength of his stupidly weak will.

“Carver?”

Except, this is _that_ voice, and these are _those_ hands, touching his hair and his face, and tugging him into an embrace that should mean everything, and it does. It does.

Everything is wrong. But this.

“It's done,” he gasps, and Fenris (always Fenris) pulls him up hard, until they are flush against each other and nothing else could ever, ever matter.

“I have you.”

He does. 

It's everything he needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, largely because it got REALLY long.
> 
> There is more, however, because this story isn't finished.
> 
> I hope you will enjoy the (as yet untitled) sequel, which is Carver's Act 2 (though the timeline is pretty broken by this point).
> 
> Thankyou for reading ^_^ your comments have made writing this a joy.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [She wasn't even working](https://archiveofourown.org/works/510234) by [ms45](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms45/pseuds/ms45)
  * [The Deeper Roads](https://archiveofourown.org/works/599382) by [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess)
  * [The Dead Trenches](https://archiveofourown.org/works/645334) by [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess)




End file.
